Authentication of a contributor of online content

ABSTRACT

Methods, computer program products and systems are described for online-content management. Online content from multiple contributors is received at one or more first computers for public online display. An authentication score is determined for a contributor of the multiple contributors. The contributor&#39;s name and a representation of the contributor&#39;s authentication score is published online for display on one or more second computers in association with the online content received from the contributor.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to pending U.S. Provisional ApplicationSer. No. 61/013,248, entitled “User-Created Content Aggregation andSharing”, filed on Dec. 12, 2007, the entire contents of which arehereby incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The instant specification relates to enabling users, such as authors, toshare content in a public system in a manner that can be authenticated,and to enabling various users of the system to comment on the content,locate quality content in which they may have an interest, and todetermine which authors generate the best content.

BACKGROUND

The internet is a great democracy—for a large part, a free-for-all ofcontent. Anyone can post almost anything they like, through blogs, otherweb pages, posted videos (e.g., on YouTube), with comments on pages ofother users, and in numerous other ways. As a result, there is no end ofinformation on the internet. But there is often a real dearth of highquality information, or the high quality information may be difficult tofind among all the low quality content.

Although well known commercial writers, such as columnists for majornewspapers, often generate some of the best written content, otherrather unknown writers often can do just as well but are neverrecognized for their work. Using the internet, such writers can reach agigantic audience, but they need to get noticed. Also, they need to makesure that other, malicious people, do not pretend to be them, and thusdestroy their reputation.

Anonymity on the internet is easy, and makes for fabulous freedom ofcontribution (e.g., users have no fear of retribution for making honestcomments). But it also makes it easy for any person of questionablebackground to pass themselves off as knowledgeable and then to amplifytheir viewpoint disproportionately, while making it difficult for thosewho are actually knowledgeable to provide proof of identity andcredentials to correct fallacious information.

Authentication of users may take a variety of forms. For example,Facebook will generally trust that a user is a student at a universityif the user has a currently valid e-mail address from the university.eBay tracks users via log in to keep records of how satisfied other arewith the users' transactions, and Amazon.com uses so-called “Badges” forusers. Merchants may require a credit card number and mailing address(or zip code) for the credit card bill along with a number printed onthe back of the card. Other systems may use a challenge responseprotocol, such as by sending password information to an e-mail addressthat has previously been associated with a user. Other systems alsopermit a universal sign in, such as the various services available fromGOOGLE. Moreover, systems like GOOGLE's WebmasterTools and SiteMapspermit webmasters to establish that they truly are associated with asite, by making them change the content of the site, and then checkingto see that the content was changed in the prescribed manner.

SUMMARY

This document discloses systems and techniques for managing a communityof content creators, or authors, and users who read content created bythose authors. The users can themselves be authors, either of originalworks or of reviews or comments concerning original content provided byothers, or comments on comments made by other users. The systems heremay provide authorship tools to assist in such content creation andsubmission, tools for signing content, and tools for managing userreputations (e.g., as determined by reviews that other users provide forcontent). In addition, various mechanisms may be provided to rewardauthors for submitting high-quality content, including financial awardsand social awards.

In general, in one aspect, methods, computer program products andsystems are described relating to online-content management. Multipleonline content items authored by multiple authors for online publicationare received. For each online content item, a reputation score isdetermined for the corresponding author. The reputation score can bebased on one or more reviews of the online content item provided by oneor more reviewers other than the author. In response to a query foronline content, wherein the online content item is included in a set ofsearch results, a ranking of the online content item in the set isdetermined based at least in part on the reputation score of the author.

In general, in another aspect, methods, computer program products andsystems are described wherein multiple online content items are receivedthat are authored by multiple authors for online publication. For eachonline content item, a reputation score is determined for thecorresponding author. The reputation score can be based on one or morereviews of the online content item provided by one or more reviewersother than the author. An online content item from the multiple onlinecontent items is published, which includes displaying an advertisementin conjunction with displaying the online content item. A share ofrevenue for the author of the online content item for displaying theadvertisement is determined based at least in part on the reputationscore of the author.

Implementations of the methods, computer program products and systemscan include one or more of the following features. The reputation scorecan be further based on a level of fame of the author. The reputationscore of the author can be elevated if the author's online content itemhas been published by a publisher determined as publishing only onlinecontent given a review exceeding a predetermined threshold. Thereputation score of the author can be further based on how many otheronline content items of the author have been published.

Where the author has published other online content items, thereputation score of the author can be further based on how recently theother online content items published. The reputation score can befurther based on a previous reputation score of the author calculated inrelation to one or more different online content items of the authorthat were previously published. Where the online content itemcorresponding to the author is about a first topic, the reputation scorecan be further based on a previous reputation score of the authorcalculated in relation to one or more different online content items ofthe author also about the first topic that were previously published.The author can have more than one reputation score if the author haspublished online content items about more than one topic. The author canhave a first alias relating to the first topic and associated with afirst reputation score and can have a second alias relating to a secondtopic and associated with a second reputation score. The first andsecond aliases can be related to each other.

The reputation score can include two or more sub-scores, where eachsub-score relates to a different quality of the online content item.Determining a reputation score for the author based on one or morereviews of the online content item provided by one or more reviewers caninclude determining if a reputation score is associated with each of theone or more reviewers. If a reputation score is associated with one ormore reviewers, then the reputation score of the author can be based, atleast in part, on the reputation score associated with the one or morereviewers.

The reputation score can be reduced if the author is determined to haveincluded plagiarized content within the online content item. Thereputation score can be portable from one online publisher to another.Determining a reputation score for the corresponding author can befurther based on a pre-existing reputation score of the author importedfrom a publisher different than a publisher of the online content item.

An identity of the author can be authenticated prior to generating areputation score of the author. The reputation score can be furtherbased on the length of time an author has been an authenticated author.

Determining a share of revenue for the author can be further based on anumber of links to the online content item from other online content.The reputation score can be further based on the number of links to theonline content item from other online content.

In general, in another aspect, methods, computer program products andsystems are described for authenticating contributors of online content.Online content is received in one or more computers from multiplecontributors for public online display. The online content includesinitial content and reviews of initial content. An authentication scoreis determined for a contributor of the multiple contributors. Thecontributor's name and a representation of the contributor'sauthentication score is published online in association with onlinecontent received from the contributor for display on one or morecomputers.

In general, in another aspect, methods, computer program products andsystems are described for authenticating contributors of online content.A request is received in a computer from a contributor to register as anauthenticated contributor. A name and personal information is receivedfrom the contributor. A determination is made from a third party sourcewhether the name and the personal information are associated. Inresponse to a positive determination that the name and personalinformation are associated, the contributor is authenticated.

Implementations of the methods, computer program products and apparatuscan include one or more of the following features. Determining anauthentication score can include receiving a name and personalinformation from the contributor and determining from a third partysource whether the name and the personal information are associated.Based on the determination, an authentication score for the contributorcan be determined. In one example, the personal information is atelephone number, and determining from a third party source includesconfirming with a telephone provider that the name and telephone numberare associated. Optionally, the contributor can be provided with atoken, and the telephone number can be called and the person who answersrequired to provide the token. In another example, the personalinformation is a credit card number, and determining from a third partysource includes confirming with a credit agency that the name and creditcard number are associated. In yet another example, the personalinformation is an identification number used for tax filing anddetermining from a third party source includes confirming with a creditagency or the Internal Revenue Service that the number and name areassociated.

In general, in another aspect, methods, computer program products andsystems are described wherein an online content item authored by anauthor is obtained in a first computer for public online display. Acredibility factor is determined for the author in association with theonline content item, where the credibility factor is based oninformation about the author verified to be true (“verifiedinformation”). In response to a query for online content, wherein theonline content item is included in a set of search results to the query,the ranking of the online content item in the set is determined in asecond computer based at least in part on the credibility factor of theauthor. The first computer and the second computer can be the same ordifferent computers.

Implementations of the methods, computer programs and systems caninclude one or more of the following features. Determining thecredibility factor can include determining information about the author,and verifying the information about the author to be true. The verifiedinformation about the author can include a reputation score for theauthor and/or an authentication score for the author.

The verified information about the author can be information as to theauthor's membership in an organization. The credibility factor can befurther based on information about the organization. The verifiedinformation about the author can include the author's employment for anemployer. The credibility factor can be further based on the relevancyof the author's employment to the author's online content item. Theverified information about the author can include information about theauthor's level of education or training in a field. The credibilityfactor can be further based on the relevancy of the field of theauthor's education or training to the author's online content item.

The verified information about the author can include the number ofother publications of the author that are relevant to the author'sonline content item. The verified information about the author caninclude the number of citations to the author's online content item thatare made in other publications of one or more different authors. Theverified information about the author can include information aboutawards and recognition of the author in one or more fields. Thecredibility factor can be further based on the relevancy of the one ormore fields to the author's online content item. The verifiedinformation about the author can include feedback received about theauthor or the author's online content item from one or moreorganizations. The credibility factor can be further based on therelevancy of the one or more organizations to the author's onlinecontent item and the feedback received. The verified information aboutthe author can include revenue information about the author's onlinecontent item.

This document also discloses systems and techniques for authenticatingcontent and authors of the content. For example, authors of on-linearticles may be authenticated so that a reputation score or indicatormay be generated for the authors (e.g., based on ratings that otherusers apply to their articles). Also, comments by users can also beauthenticated, so that user may generate reputations as thoughtfulcommentators or quick on the trigger pundits.

The details of one or more embodiments of the authentication featuresare set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below.Other aspects and advantages of the authentication features will beapparent from the description and drawings, and from the claims.

DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of an example system providing acollaborative editing model for online content.

FIG. 2 is a conceptual diagram showing a system for receiving andmanaging content and comments, ratings, and other input associated withthe content.

FIG. 3 is a schematic representation of an example content managementserver providing a collaborative editing model for online content.

FIG. 4A is a conceptual diagram of an environment in which a contentmanager may exist.

FIG. 4B is a flowchart showing an example process for using an author'sreputation score when ranking an online content item of author.

FIG. 4C is a flowchart showing an example process for authenticating anauthor.

FIG. 4D is a flowchart shows an example process for using an author'scredibility factor when ranking a set of search results.

FIG. 4E is a flowchart showing an example process for using an author'sreputation score when monetizing an online content item of the author.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an example process for collaborativelyediting online content.

FIGS. 6A-D show example user interface screen shots for linking two ormore user-created online documents.

FIGS. 7A-7E show screen shots of a formatted discrete piece of submittedcontent.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of an example computer system.

Like reference symbols in the various drawings indicate like elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Techniques, methods, apparatus and a system for creating, editing andmanaging online content are described here. In particular, acollaboration model for editing an online content item is described. Inone illustrative example, the online content item is a user-createdwebpage that attempts to be the “best answer” for a particular topic(which in some implementations could be delivered as a special searchresult by a search engine). Such an online content item is referred toherein as a “knol” (for a unit of knowledge), although othernomenclature can be used. Such items may also be various other forms ofuser-submitted content that is available to other users in acommunity—all of which may be termed a “knol.”

Content as described here may be managed and stored by a singleorganization or may be distributed content. Regarding the formerexample, one organization may permit submissions of content by multiplevarious users, and may store such submitted content and permit edits tobe made to the content. Such an approach may permit the organization tomaintain greater control over the format and consistency of the content,and to better use the content as a search engine corpus. Such anapproach may be exemplified by a system such as the GOOGLE KNOL system.Regarding the latter example, content may be spread around various websites that may act as publishers of content, and a central system maytrack the location of the content and its authorship, and may also trackauthor reputations (which may be computed in a variety of manners asdescribed below) so as to better direct users to various publishers orcontent submissions.

The knol can include text, pictures, video, maps, and/or embeddedapplications. The knol can be owned by an author of the knol. However,other users can be authorized to edit the knol, i.e., collaborators, orto suggest edits, as is described further below. Although thedescription below is in relation to knols for illustrative purposes, itshould be understood that the techniques, apparatus and systemsdescribed can be used to collaborate in relation to any text-basedonline content item.

A knol can be created by an author voluntarily of his or her owninitiative, or can be created in response to an invitation to create aknol on a particular topic. For example, a search engine such as theGoogle search engine available at www.google.com by Google, Inc. ofMountain View, Calif., may display an invitation to a Google user tocreate a knol that can provide an answer to a query frequently receivedby the search engine. In one implementation the invention can betriggered when a user inputs a search query into the search engine andthe search query has been identified by the search engine as a commonquery for which a knol is desired. Other trigger events can exist, andthe one discussed is an illustrative example.

In one implementation, an author creates a knol using a knol userinterface that is hosted by a search engine provider, for example,Google, Inc. Creating the knol through the knol user interface canprovide consistency in the manner in which the knol is created.Additionally, the knol can be identified as being a “knol” whenpresented with other search results in response to a search queryreceived by the search engine. For example, in one implementation, asearch result that is a knol has a distinctive appearance in a searchresult set, and may either be mingled with other search results oridentified separately, e.g., in a separate box or otherwise identifiedas “knol” results.

The knol user interface can provide a page viewer. A knol can appearinside a frame that shows the knol content, the author, contributors(i.e., non-author users that contributed content to the knol) and searchand navigation tools can be provided to facilitate use of the knol.

A collaborative editing model can be provided wherein the owner of aknol (i.e., the author), author-designated collaborators and others cancontribute edits to the contents of the knol. A knol has a public-facingversion, which is a current version that is publicly available forviewing. The owner of the knol is authorized to apply edits to the knolcontent that effect a change to the public-facing version of the knol.The owner can designate one or more collaborators with permission toalso apply edits to the knol content that change the public-facingversion of the knol. Other than the owner and the collaborators, no oneelse can change the public-facing version of the knol. However, otherscan provide suggested edits to the current public-facing version of theknol. The owner and the collaborators can then decide whether or not toaccept or reject suggested edits, as is described further below.

In one implementation, any person who can publicly view the knol contentcan provide a suggested edit. In another implementation, an entityhosting the knols, for example, Google as described above, can restrictsuggested edits to persons that have registered with Google, therebyauthenticating, at least to some degree, that the suggested edits arebeing made by a human being, rather than an automated spider or thelike.

The collaborative editing model provides flexible editing capabilitiesto any authorized editor, e.g., the owner 102 or a collaborator 104. Aset of suggested edits accumulates with respect to a first public-facingversion of the online content. That is, each suggested edit in the setis an edit to the same base version of the content; the edits are inparallel with one another. After a set of suggested edits provided bymultiple different users has accumulated, an authorized editor canreview the set of suggested edits and has the flexibility to pick andchoose which edits to apply to generate a modified second public-facingversion of the online content, subject to conflicts between edits.

By contrast, if the edits are provided in series, meaning that eachsuggested edit accumulated relates to the base version plus the lastreceived suggested edit, then each suggested edit builds on and istherefore dependent on a previous suggested edit. If such a scenario, ifthe authorized editor decides to reject a suggested edit, then he/shecannot accepts any downstream suggested edits either, as they were builton the rejected edit. Editing flexibility is thereby curbed. In thesystem described herein, because the suggested edits all relate to thesame base version, the suggested editor is not restricted in what he/shemay or may not accept by an earlier decision to reject a particularsuggested edit. The authorized editor is provided with a visualnotification of the suggested edits as compared to the firstpublic-facing version of the content (i.e., the base version) and isnotified of conflicts between two or more suggested edits. Conflictnotification and resolution is described further below.

In other implementations, other models for content provision and editingmay be used. For example, a user may create content off-line and submitit in a form that they prefer, and the system may convert the contentinto a form that is consistent with the rest of a collaborative system.Authors may be given a chance to review the content in its convertedform and to approve or perhaps edit the converted content. Also, contentmay also be stored in the system according to format in which a usersubmits it (e.g., in WORD, HTML, pdf, or other such document formats).In such a situation, a copy of the content, such as in HTML or plaintextform, may be created so as to permit easier searching and manipulationof the content.

Referring to FIG. 1, a schematic representation of an example system 100providing a collaborative editing model for online content is shown. Anowner 102 can provide knol content 120 or other content to a contentmanagement server 101. Users of the content management server—forexample, users 106 and 108—can provide their suggested edits 112 and114, respectively, of the knol content 120 to the content managementserver 101. The suggested edits 112 and 114 can be accessed by the owner102 and one or more collaborators, e.g., collaborator 104. The owner 102and collaborator 104 can provide edits 122 and 126 respectively to thecontent management server 101, thereby modifying the public-facingversion of the knol content. A user 110 who enters a search query 116into the content management server can receive a set of search results118 that may include the knol content 120 (where the actual searchresult may include a link pointing to the knoll content), depending onthe search terms. In other example systems, the content managementserver 101 can be replaced by two or more servers, each providing asub-set of the functionality referred to above.

In the example system shown, only the owner 102 can provide knol content120. However, in other implementations, the owner 102 can permit others,e.g., the collaborators 104, to provide content as well. The owner 102can have certain authority that other authors or collaborators are notgiven, for example, the authority to change ownership, invite/disallowcollaborators, publish or unpublish the knol content, permit or denyadvertising in conjunction with the knol content, specify the recipientsof advertising revenue if advertising is permitted, and/or change theterms of a license of use of the knol content to name a few examples.

An edit includes one or more modifications to the content of a knol andcan include a brief explanation of why the modification was made, orother comments about changes to the knol. If a user has authorization tomodify the knol, i.e., is an owner or collaborator, then the user'schanges to the knol can take effect to the public-facing versionimmediately. Otherwise, if the user does not have authorization, thenthe user's edits can be retained as a “delta”.

The delta can be placed in a suggested edits module where an owner orcollaborator of the knol can review the delta and decide to merge ordiscard the suggestion. An edit suggestion (i.e., an unmerged delta)does not modify a public facing version of the knol. In otherimplementations, any user can edit the public-facing version of the knolcontent, and can access suggested edits received from other users.

In one implementation, knol content can be edited using an in-line HTMLeditor. The functions of the editor include: text editing functions; adisplay of visual differences (mark-ups) between two versions of asection; and a display of suggested edits.

Referring to FIG. 2, a conceptual diagram shows a system 200 forreceiving and managing content and other input associated with thecontent, such as comments and ratings by users other than the author ofthe content. Such a system 200 may be implemented using the componentsshown in FIG. 1 or by other appropriate components. In general, system200 is an example of a system by which users can be shown particularpieces of content that are related to various topics, and may commenton, edit, rate, or otherwise interact with the content. Certain users,if they feel they have adequate knowledge regarding a topic, may createsubstantial new content on the topic, such as by authoring a submission(e.g., in the form of a post, article, chapter, or book, among otherthings) from scratch.

Components in the figure are organized into three main groupsconceptually. Within each group, there are interfaces (e.g., web pages)shown as rectangles, features (which generally would not need to beimplemented on their own web page and could be include in an existingweb page) shown in ovals, and actions shown outside any shape. Theactions may represent, for example, commands or desires by a user thatwill take the user from one page to another or will cause some featureto be invoked on behalf of the user.

Referring to the three groups shown in the system 200, a discovery group206 represents web pages or other user interface elements, and actionsby users, that occur when users are looking for new information on oneor more topics. An authors group 204 represents interfaces and actionsby which users may offer and submit content to the system 200, such asby submitting articles, posts, podcasts, videos, and other similarcontent. A consumers group 202 represents interfaces and actions thatmay be experienced by users who are reviewing content that has beenposted or otherwise generated by the system 200. Such consumers mayinclude, for example, users who have previously entered a search requestand who select a result that includes a link to content managed by thesystem 200.

Referring now more specifically to discovery group 206, such a group mayrepresent mechanisms by which various users may achieve entry to acontent management system. Two exemplary entry points are shown in thisexample. First, entry may occur through external sites 272, which mayinclude a variety of internet web sites that point to content managed bythe system 200. For example, such sites may contain hyperlinks or othermechanisms for directing users to the content.

In addition, entry may be had by results 270 generated by a searchengine. Such results 270 may take a variety of forms. In one example,the results 270 may be like ordinary results listed in response to asearch query, e.g., that come from a search across an index of a widevariety of web pages. In yet another example, the results 270 may befrom a search corpus that differs from a normal corpus accessed by thesearch engine. For example, a particular corpus may be reserved forpages that are managed by the content management system 200, such aspages directed to topical content on a variety of topics that are ofinterest to various users. Such pages may be similar to entries providedwith encyclopedias or similar references, including online encyclopediassuch as Wikipedia or GOOGLE KNOL. Where the content-based search resultis from a special corpus (e.g., is limited to a particular domain), orin other situations, the search result may be formatted in a particularmanner, such as to stand out from other ordinary web-based searchresults. Typical Google search results formatted in a form known as a“one box” are one such example.

Generally, users move from being in a discovery mode, such as whenentering search terms, to being in a consumer mode for consuming thecontent managed by the system 200. Such a transition may occur, forexample, as shown by the various arrows in the figure, when a userselects a hyperlink from an external site, when the user selects asearch result for such managed content, or when a user otherwiseexpresses an interest in such content to the system 200. In each such asituation, the FIG. 2 shows flow arrows passing from the discovery group206 to a content viewer 210 in the consumers group 202. Such processflow causes the content in which the user is interested to be displayed,such as in the form shown below in FIGS. 7A-7E.

Alternatively, the user may continue their discovery or become anauthor, as shown near the right hand side of discovery group 206. Forexample, if the user does not express an interest in a content-relatedsearch result, they may return and select a different result or maysubmit a new search query. They may also leave the system entirely, andmay be unhappy in doing so. If they do find a topic in which they areinterested and they consider themselves to be knowledgeable on thetopic, such as by considering themselves to be an expert or anear-expert in the sense that they could communicate their knowledge toothers in a beneficial way, they may elect to become an author ofcontent on the subject or topic, which may lead them to the userinterface provided by editor 240, which is described in more detailbelow.

Returning now to users who choose to review content and thus becomeconsumers via viewer 210, a variety of actions may be taken by usersthat are viewing such content, and such users may be shown a variety ofother user interfaces in response to those actions. In one example, asdescribed in more detail above and below, a user may be shown an articleor other piece of content on a topic, and may be given a number ofoptions to comment on, rate, edit, or otherwise interact with thecontent. For example, a user may choose to read or write reviews for apiece of content using reviews interface 216. Such an interface maypermit a user to provide an overall impression of a piece of content,similar to the manner in which a shopper may review a product onwebsites such as Amazon.com, or an author may write a book review.

The user may also choose to rate a piece of content, such as a webpage,using a ratings feature 217. Such a feature may simply permit a user toselect a number of stars or other icons, such as on a scale from one tofive stars, to express a quality level that the user would associatewith the piece of content. The ratings feature 217 is shown in thefigure as a rounded box rather than a full rectangle, to demonstratethat such a feature would not ordinarily involve transporting the userto a separate interface, but would instead involve simple interaction bythe user through the viewer 210, e.g., selection of stars on a gadgetdisplayed on a web page by the viewer 210.

In a similar manner, a user may use a comments or discussions feature219 to comment on a piece of content or a portion of the piece ofcontent. Such a feature may be similar in functionality to that providedby reviews interface 216, but would generally involve shorter commentsdirected toward a particular part of the content or a particular pointmade in the content, rather than being a review of the entire piece ofcontent. Again, such a feature may be provided in the interface of theviewer 210, such as in a comment area at the end of a posting (see,e.g., FIGS. 7D and 7E).

As discussed above with respect to FIG. 1, users may also provide editsor suggestions for edits to a piece of content, such as a webpage, usingedits/suggestions interface 218. Such an interface may permit a user tomake suggested changes or edits to a page, to see other edits that maythen made to the page by the user or by other users (e.g., with anauthor or owner of a page controlled the ultimate entry of such edits),and to review edits, such as when an author or other owner of a pagewishes to see suggested edits made by others to a page and then approveor disapprove such edits. Where changes or edits are to be made to apage, the user may be taken to the editor 240. Also, a user may chooseto become their own author on the topic or on a related topic if theyfeel they possess the appropriate expertise, and in such a situation, auser may be taken to the editor 240 but be directed to a fresh and blankpiece of content (or may start with a particular piece of content thatthey are to re-form).

Other general functionality may also be provided with respect to viewer210. For example, an “about” interface 222 may be displayed to a user toexplain the manner in which the system 200 receives, manages, anddisplays content, or may show the user additional information about aparticular piece of content, such as information about the author of thecontent or others who have edited the content. In addition, users of theviewer 210 may be shown group pages 214, which are pages that have beencreated around topics similar to those discussed on the page currentlybeing viewed by the user, or by (or for) other users with commoninterests to each other or to the user who is doing the viewing. Forexample, various pages may be organized hierarchically by topic so thatusers may more readily browse through the pages to find a specific pagethat interests them. As one example, one page may be written to explainthe basics of high definition televisions, while other pages may beassociated with the initial page if they explain details about surroundsound, television programming, electronic program guides, remotecontrols, and the like.

Commonality between users and between particular pieces of content maybe determined with the assistance of user bios/profile module 212. Sucha module may take a familiar form, and may permit users to enter certaindemographic data or other data that may reflect on the interests of theuser. For example, the user may enter a profession or hobbies in whichthey are interested, so that the system 200 may more readily direct themto topics and content related to such interests. In addition, such amodule 212 may keep track of various pages or other forms of contentcreated by each user in a familiar manner, so that connections betweensuch content may be more readily determined by other users. As oneexample, if a particular user is an author that develops a positivereputation within the system 200, other users may wish to review otherarticles by that same author because they trust that the high qualityexhibited in the articles they have already reviewed will be replicatedin those other articles. The module 212 may assist in joining thevarious submissions from that author to each other.

Authors group 204 shows interfaces and features that may be presented toa user when they have exhibited an interest in creating their owncontent, in a manner that is more than simply providing comments orratings on the content of other users. The editor 240, which authors mayuse to enter and format their content, may provide a user interface thattakes a variety of forms. For example, the editor may provide featureslike those provided by GOOGLE DOCUMENTS or other similar word processingapplications.

The editor 240 may also accept content that has previously beengenerated in other forms and may convert such content to a common formor may generate a copy of the content in a common form. For example, ifan author submits a PDF file as an example of content, the editor 240may save the PDF file so that it may be accessed by other users whowould like to see the content in its native form as it was created bythe author. The editor 240 may also create a copy of the content in adifferent format such as in HTML format, so that it may be edited,commented upon, or otherwise manipulated by the system 200 in a mannerthat is familiar to other users and consistent across the system 200.

Authors of content using editor 240 may make use of a number of featuresor interfaces. For example, a suggestions feature 248 may be selected bya user to obtain help with creating content. The suggestions feature 248may provide discussions or examples that may help a user create betterand more interesting content. For example, the suggestions feature 248may assist an author with outlining a topic, with adding media itemssuch as images and videos to a topic and with otherwise creating moreinteresting and better verified discussions in the content. In addition,the suggestions feature 248 may display “best practices” documents to auser, where such documents are considered to be pleasing andwell-written, and may permit the user to extract formatting informationfrom such documents to use in their own work.

An import tool 250 may allow a user to more conveniently import contentthat has already been created, as discussed above. For example, theimport tool 250 may present an interface that includes a file manager bywhich a user can browse for and identify a file on their local computerthat they would like to upload to the system 200. The import tool 250may also provide a number of other features, such as by allowing a userto specify manners in which they would like their pre-existing contentto be formatted or reformatted when it is imported into the system.

Templates and styles interface 252 may be accessed by a user to select aformat or style for their content, such as from a list of examplestyles. Such an interface may take a form similar to that provided byvarious office productivity applications that are pre-loaded withpreformatted items that a user may select from, and may then add contentto, in order to customize the provided templates. Uploader 242 maysimply provide an interface by which a user can identify a file or URLthat represents, for example, an image, sound file, or video file thatan author would like to incorporate into a piece of content.

A transclusion interface 244 may allow a user to bring existing orfuture content or knowledge into a piece of content that they areauthoring in a variety of exemplary ways. For example, an author mayquote from or otherwise reference another piece of content, and thecontent may be added to a page the author is developing, while aconnection back to the originating material is maintained by the system.Such a connection may serve a number of purposes. For example, it may beused as a navigational tool, such as a link, for viewers of the maincontent to be brought to the referenced content.

Transclusion may also be used to transfer reactions over the citingcontent to the cited content, such as by providing payment to the authorof the cited content when payment is made to the author of the citingcontent (e.g., in rough proportion to the amount of the second (citing)content that is made up by the first (cited) content), by increasing arelevance score for the cited content with respect to a search engine(e.g., much like the operation of the GOOGLE PAGERANK system appliesrankings based on back links from pages to other pages, under theassumption that citation to the first content means that that content isconsidered relevant by someone), or by otherwise increasing a rating forthe cited content (e.g., if many users submit high ratings for theciting article, the cited article may also receive a bump in ratingsunder the assumption that it bears some credit for the positive userreviews). Transclusion is also discussed more fully below.

Finally, a gadget selector 246 may permit an author to incorporategadgets on or with their page. Gadgets are generally portable programmodules; they are portable in that they can be inserted in a variety ofdifferent locations, such as on web pages or on computer desktops.Gadgets often exhibit dynamic content, such as by externally referencingdata that is available on the internet. For example, a gadget may obtaincurrent time and temperature data and display it in a pleasing manner,or may show stock prices for a handful of companies selected by a user.Generally, gadgets (which can sometimes be referenced as widgets invarious forms) can be authored by anyone with the skill and inclinationthat can follow a public API, and can be made freely available to thepublic. Examples of gadgets may be seen with the iGOOGLE product.

Authors may use gadgets to provide a dynamic aspect to their content ina variety of ways. For example, a gadget may report information on theearth's average temperature for the past month and year and may comparesuch temperatures to historical averages; an author of an article aboutglobal warming may wish to include such a gadget at an appropriate pointin the article. A similar use may be made of a gadget that tracks thecurrent value of the national debt.

The interfaces and other features shown here may permit a community tobe developed as a sort of area on the internet in which high-quality andspecific content may be centered. Such a community involves users whoare interested in good content, and authors that are able to generategood content. The difference between good and bad content may bemoderated by the users (such as by providing ratings) and may quickly bereflected back to the users so that content that the community considersto be of high-quality may work its way quickly to the top of the heap.Various considerations for such a system, and examples of particularimplementations of such a system are discussed next.

Referring to FIG. 3, a schematic representation of the example contentmanagement server 101 of FIG. 1 is shown in further detail. The contentmanagement server 101 is shown to communicate with the owner 102,collaborator 104 and users 106 and 110 over a network 302. The network302 can be the Internet, a wide-area network, local-area network, or anyother network providing for electronic communication between theparties.

The example content management server 101 includes an interface 324 forcommunication with the parties over the network 302. The user interfacefunctionality available to one party, e.g., the owner 102, may bedifferent than the functionality provided to another party, e.g., theusers 106 and 110, as is described further below. A suggested editsmodule 304 is provided to store suggested edits provided by user, e.g.,user 106. A pending suggested edit is referred to as a “delta”, and thesuggested edits module 304 includes deltas 306 a-n. An editing module308 provides editing functionality to the owner 102 and anycollaborators, e.g., collaborator 104. A conflict detection/resolutionsub-module 310 is provided to detect conflicts between two or moredeltas and to resolve the conflict, as is described further below.

A data store 312 includes knol content 314 and editing information 318.The editing information 318 can include revisions to the knol content,comments appended to revisions, edit logs and the like. In someimplementations, discussion threads 320 can be appended to knol contentand included within the data store 312, as is discussed further below.Author pages 316 included in the data store 312 provide informationabout authors of the knol content, and are described in further detailbelow.

A search engine 322 receives and responds to search queries, forexample, the search query 116 of the user 110. Search results areprovided, for example, search results 118 in response to search query116. If a knol exists in the data store 312 that corresponds to thesearch query, the knol can be provided within the search results 118.

In other implementations, the functionality provided by the contentmanagement server 101 described above can be distributed across two ormore servers in electrical communication with the network 302, eitherdirectly or indirectly. Other configurations of content managementservers 101 and the components thereof can be used, and the contentmanagement server 101 of FIG. 2 is but one example.

FIG. 4A is a conceptual diagram of an environment 400 in which a contentmanager 402 may exist. The content manager 402 may take a form like thatshown in the figures above, in that it may permit content submissionsfrom various users and may let other users comment on, rate, and edit orsuggests edits for contributions from various authors, among otherthings. In this representation, the content manager 402 is shownsurrounded by three groups (shown in circles) that have a stake in thecontent manager 402, and three example functions (shown in rectangles)that are performed in cooperation with the content manager 402.

Referring first to the groups, a first group is made up of authors 404.The authors 404 are creators of original content, as described above.Authors may develop content from scratch on an empty page, or may borrowfrom content developed by other authors. For example, an author mayquote or link to writings by other authors, and may also invite othersto be co-authors. In one example, an author may establish a collectionof works and invite others to write portions of the collection, muchlike an editor of a technical volume might organize individual chaptersthat are each written by a different contributor. Authors generally seekrecognition for their work, and may also seek more concrete forms ofreward such as money.

To that end, authors may be registered with and authenticated by thesystem 400. For example, the system 400 may require logins by users andmay associate users with accounts. The accounts may keep track ofcontent submitted by individual users, comments made by users, and othersimilar tracking of information. Such information may be used togenerate reputation scores or indicators for users such as authors. Forexample, ratings provided by various users for an author's submissionsmay be used to rank the author in terms of quality. Such rankings may beshown to users so that they can more readily judge the perceived qualityof an author (and authors may be assigned to various levels based on therankings, e.g., silver, gold, and platinum), may be used as an input toa search engine in determining where to rank content of authors when thecontent is responsive to a search request, and to provide compensations(including monetary compensation) to authors. Each of these points isdescribed in more detail below. Particular features for providing authorrankings and for rooting out fraud in such rankings are disclosed inpending U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 61/005,482, filed Dec. 4, 2007,entitled “RATING RATERS”, which is hereby incorporated by reference inits entirety.

Publishers 406 may manage the organization and development of content incooperation with authors. Publishers may take traditional forms such asbook publishing houses or record labels, but in this example may beorganizations that are taking advantage of opportunities for digitalpublication and distribution of content. Publishers may, according totraditional goals, seek to make content in a particular subject areaavailable to the public in return for some sort of monetary or otherreward. For example, a publisher may host a web site for politicalcolumnists and may run advertising on that web site, similar toadvertising generated by the GOOGLE ADSENSE system, to produce revenuefor its operation. The publisher may in turn share some of the revenuewith authors whose work are published on the site, in order to inducemore and better-qualified authors to submit content to the publisher.

The system 400 may help such publishers, such as by driving consumers tothe publishers' web sites, and by helping the publishers more fairlycompensate its authors. For example, by keeping track of authorreputations and sharing such information with the publishers, thecontent manager 402 may help the publishers better understand what, andwhich authors, is driving visitors to a site, so that those importantauthors may be more highly compensated than are other authors. Inaddition, content manager 402 may be associated with a payment system,such as a publicly accessible micropayment system, and may thus permitpublishers to more easily seek payment from consumers (where thepublisher's economic model is based at least in part on paid content)and may make associated payments to the authors for the publisher.

The community 408 may take a variety of forms and the system 400 mayprovide a variety of services to the community 408. In general, thecommunity will include various authenticated users who are interested inviewing content from the system. The content manager 402 and/or thepublishers 406 can take part in authenticating and/or verifying anauthentication (414) of a user in the community 408 and the authors 404.

Unauthenticated users may be allowed into the system also, but may beprevented from ranking content, commenting on content, or editingcontent. Such a restriction may be imposed to prevent rogue users frommaking improper edits and from giving authors dishonest rankings (e.g.,because of personal animosity to an author, because of a closefriendship with an author, or out of pure spite), and may permit bettertracking in the system (e.g., by providing reputation scoring for editsand comments in addition to pure authorship, to normalize a user'sranking of a particular author base on other of the user's rankings(e.g., perhaps the user is too “nice” or too “mean” when ranking),etc.).

In short, the roles include a publisher such as a business owner chargewith running a publication and getting visibility for the publication,multiple content creators who write articles or contribute other contentto the publication and want to be recognized for their contributions,and a community of users that maintains the quality of the publicationsby their reading the content and participating in judging the quality ofthe content. The system's functions of contribution, authentication, andmonetization will be described next.

Contribution and Reputation

User contributions may take multiple forms, such as reviews, comments,and ratings. Such contributions may be aided by content generation toolssuch as BLOGGER, PAGE CREATOR, GOOGLE DOCUMENTS, and JOTSPOT, asexamples. Publishers may organize content through various webmastertools that are publicly available. Publishers may, for example, organizearound vertical-specific community database that center aroundparticular topic areas (e.g., technology, health, travel, etc.)

Each type of contribution may be used in a variety of ways to affect thebase content to which the contributions are directed. As one example,ratings may be applied to the content, and average ratings forparticular pieces of content may be determined. Such ratings may then betransmitted to the authors of the content, and the authors may in turnbe rated. For example, an author may be given an overall rating that isa weighted average of the pieces of content the author has produced(perhaps with ratings deemed to be unreliable or fraudulent removed). Anauthor may also have such a score fed into a more comprehensivereputation rating process, which may take into account scores providedwithin an on-line community and other factors. For example, “famous”authors may be put in a different group or have their scores elevated,such as if they won a Pulitzer prize or similar award (e.g., for poetryor the like). In some implementations, fame can be estimated (or proxiedfor) by many factors including, for example and without limitation:mentions of the author in a web index (e.g., the Google index); mentionsof the author in certain publications (e.g., magazines or news papersthat frequently carry articles about celebrities); the rate ofappearance of the author's name in query logs for certain websites(e.g., news.google.com, www.google.com, news.google.com/archivesearch);and/or the number of links to a blog owned by the author.

Also, certain publishers (e.g., the New York Times) may establishthemselves as hiring, or publishing the work of, only accomplishedauthors, so that authors published by such organizations may be given ahigher reputation score. Such publishers may be deduced also, such as bydetermining that the average rankings for articles on a certain site arevery high, and thus that an author who manages to publish on such a sitemust have some technical capabilities.

Users who submit reviews and comments, a form of derivative authorship,may also be assigned reputation points or indicators based on suchauthoring contributions, and a user's overall reputation score may be acombination of normal authorship and derivative authorship—where normalauthorship may be weighted more highly. Also, a reputation may be afactor dependent on the amount of time that a user has been in a system,and the level of activity of the user within the system. For instance auser whose contributions average a rating of 3.0 from other users butwho has made hundreds of contributions over many years, may have asubstantially higher reputation score than does a user with an averageof 3.0 from a handful of readers on a single submitted article.

FIG. 4B is a flowchart showing an example process 420 for using anauthor's reputation score when ranking an online content item of author.Multiple online content items authored by multiple authors are obtainedfor online publication (Step 422). For example, in some implementations,the multiple online content items can be obtained by the content manager402 from the authors 404, as shown in FIG. 4A. For each online contentitem, a reputation score is determined for the corresponding author(Step 424). The reputation score can be based on one or more reviews ofthe online content item provided by one or more reviewers other than theauthor. For example, in some implementations, the one or more reviewersare members of the community 408 and/or the authors 404, shown in FIG.4A. In response to a query for online content, where the online contentitem can be included in a set of search results (Step 426). The rankingof the online content item in the set can be determined, at least inpart, based on the reputation score of the author (Step 428). The rankedset of search results can then be presented (e.g., displayed on acomputer) to a user providing the search query (Step 430).

In some implementations, users may have multiple reputations. Forexample, a user may have a different reputation for original contentthan they do for derivative content. Also, a user may have differentreputations for different topics. For instance a nuclear physicists mayhave a very high reputation for articles she writes regardingrelativity, but may have a very low reputation for articles she authorsabout home theatre systems (if she has a dead ear). In such a situation,the user could self-categorize their expertise in an attempt to preventtheir weak skills from watering down their rating. Such categorizationcould occur by the user authenticating under two different aliases,which the system may track as being related to each other, or byidentifying different fields that should not have reputations scorestransferred between them (but where the user has a single on-linepersona).

Reputations may also be judged across a multitude of factors. Forexample, a user may have an overall reputation for quality writing. Theuser may also, however, be assigned a reputation indicator for thequality of their thoughts, the technical quality of their writing, andfor other parameters that may be of interests to members of a community.In certain implementations, a parameter such as technical writing skillmay be judged across all topics on which an author has written, whileother parameters like grasp of the subject matter, may have their scoresisolated into particular bins. For instance, if our nuclear physicistfrom above is a horrible writer, a brilliant scientist, and a hometheatre hack, the science community may not care about her home theatreproblems, but may want to know about her problems with grammar.

In addition, the reputations of particular authors may be used to adjustthe reputations of other authors. For example, if Stephen King (whopresumably knows his stuff, as the author of On Writing) gives 5 starsor a similar high ranking to another author, the reputation of thatother author will increase more than it would if an unknown with a smallreputation did the same. In essence, the ranking of an author woulddepend on the rankings provided by other authors, and would depend inparticular on the rankings of those other authors, where ranking byauthors would be weighted according to the level of their ownreputations (and their reputations would in turn be modulated, at leastin part, by the rankings they receive from other authors)—in effect aPAGERANK-like technique applied to author reputations. Such reputationindicators may then in turn be used to score web pages in search results(e.g., if a highly-ranked author gives a high score to a page, itssearch position will rise), along with other traditional factors such asPAGERANK scores, click-through rates, ratio of good scores, and spamscores. In some implementations, the authors reputation score can beinfluenced by the web page score attributed to web pages where theauthor's online content is published, which web page score can bedetermined using traditional factors as discussed above or by othertechniques.

Such reputation scores may also be portable, at least where authors areproperly authenticated. In particular, an author may take his or herreputation with him or her when they write for variouspublications—because the system can track the reputation regardless ofwhere the author is publishing. As a result, authors may more readilypublish on a variety of topics with publishers that match those topics(e.g., George Will can write for a baseball web page and for a politicalweb page), and can also use their reputations to help drive consumers tosuch other locations, and by extension, to increase the amount thatpublishers will pay them for their work.

In addition, copied contributions may be tracked more easily in such asystem. Known plagiarism identification techniques may be used toidentify authors who have copied content from others. For example,content may be date stamped when it is first submitted to a system, andcontent that is very similar may be flagged as a potential problem. Suchsituations may then be pulled into a dispute resolution process, wherethe putative originating author and the suspected copyist may statetheir cases. Other users (such as authors who have been part of thesystem for a long time and have high reputations) may then decide who iscorrect. Users found to plagiarize or have other harmful conduct (e.g.,flaming, inappropriate comments, etc.) may have their reputationslowered, thus resulting in lowered rankings for their work and lesstraffic by other users to their work.

Techniques may also be taken to help “mainstream” such content. Inparticular, there is often a real lag time before new content begins tobe reported at an appropriate level by search engines. That is becausesearch engines often depend on references by certain pages to otherpages—when a page is brand new, no other page references it and is scoremay be low as a result, even if it is the best page in the world. Whereseparate content is pulled aside in the manners discussed here as beingcontent that should be authoritative on a topic or at least a decentsummary of a topic, it may be flagged for separate treatment. Forexample, it may be crawled more often so that its presence will berecognized more quickly. Also, its search scores may depend more onratings from users than on ratings from other pages in the form ofincoming back links. As such, the prominence of the content in a searchresult can rise quickly as users find it, and need not wait for otherweb publishers to find it and link to it.

Contribution may be initiated, encouraged, or “seeded” by a number ofmethods. For example, a central organization may initially commissionauthors to write articles on important or central topics. Such articlesmay then encourage community members to add new articles around theedges of the main article. Alternative, extracted or licensed contentmay be obtained, and then organized to fit the desired format.Particular topics to address in the initial seeding may be determined byreviewing logs of user query sessions to find search terms that led tounsatisfied users (e.g., where users abandon a search without spendingany substantial time at any search result, or try a modified searchrequest). Also, a system that lets user pose questions may serve as afurther source of topics on which content is needed.

Authentication

Tracking user reputations can depend in large part on authentication ofusers in a community. Once users are initially authenticated, suchauthentication may be maintained by various standard mechanisms such aslog in credentials (e.g., user name and password). To initiallyauthenticate a user, i.e., to determine that they are who they say theyare, various mechanisms may be used. For instance, for certain prominentauthors, the system may initially contact the author and provide themwith a unique (or effectively unique) token that the author can use toregister with the system. As one example, the e-mail addresses ortelephone numbers of reporters at a particular newspaper, magazine, orother publisher may be accessed from publicly available sources. Suchreporters may then be contacted via e-mail or telephone. In the exampleof e-mail, the reporter may be given a unique token and a URL directedtoward the system. The user may select the URL and then enter the tokeninformation at a web site. No other user should have the tokeninformation, so the user can be authenticated in this manner. Thereporter may then enter additional information to be kept in a profileof the reporter. Subsequent access by the reporter to the system may beby a user name and password selected by the reporter, and the reportermay be authenticated in that manner. Similar authentication may occur bycalling the reporter and letting her pick a user name and password(which a technician on the telephone call would then enter into thesystem). In some implementations, a non-user initiated authenticationtechnique is granted a higher authentication score than a user-initiatedtechnique.

Authentication may also be initiated by the user. In one example, a usermay provide a telephone number when they initially seek authentication.A system may then compare that telephone number to publicly availableinformation (e.g., performing a reverse look-up to match the namesupplied by the user to the number supplied by the user), comparing thenumber to a location of an IP address associated with the user'ssubmission, and the like, to verify that the number and user areassociated. The system may then present the user with a token, dial theverified telephone number, and ask the person who answers the telephonenumber to enter the token. Such an authentication technique may at leastdo a good job of tying the user to the verified telephone number, whichmake the person much less likely to be an impersonator, and may alsofilter out a number of other attempts at deception.

In other implementations, the user can be provided the token by way of atext message sent to the verified telephone number and can be requiredto re-submit the token, e.g., by entering it into a form on a webpage orby telephoning a number and repeating the token. In otherimplementations, the user can be provided the token by mail, where thetoken is mailed to an address that optionally has been previouslyverified as associated with the user. The user can then be required tore-submit the token, e.g., by entering it into a form on a webpage or bytelephoning a number and repeating the token.

In other implementations, “out of wallet” identification can be used inthe authentication process. Out of wallet refers to using data that isnot available easily to persons apart from the user, who would know thisinformation but is not likely to carry such information in his/herwallet. This type of out of wallet data can be accessed through certaindatabases, but is not generally publicly available, e.g., to animpersonator. A user can be requested to provide out of wallet data,e.g., over the telephone after being called at the verified telephonenumber, or by filling out a form on a webpage, or otherwise.

The system may also use domain information in a user's supplied e-mailaddress (which may be checked via a challenge-response interaction) tohelp authenticate the user. For example, if a user claims to be a NASAemployee when submitting profile information for authorship, the factthat their e-mail address ends in nasa.gov would be an indicator ofauthenticity.

Also, an organization such as GOOGLE, EBAY, or AMAZON.COM may havedeveloped a historical relationship with a user by the fact that theuser has been part of their community for a long time. The existence ofsuch a relationship, where the user has abided by the policies of thecommunity, may also be used as a signal to authenticate the user.

An indicator of the authentication confidence for a user may also beprovided. In particular, a number of authentication techniques likethose discussed above may be used to authenticate a user. For eachtechnique that returns a positive authentication, the strength of theauthentication may be better, and the user may receive a correspondinglyhigh authentication score, which may be displayed to other users who areinterested in whether the user is who they say they are. Such a scoremay subsequently be affected by a number of other factors, which may ormay not be weighted. For example, if a user remains a member in goodstanding in a community for a long time, their authentication score mayrise. In contrast, if other users (and in particular other users whohave high reputations) question the actions of a user or theauthenticity of the user, the authentication score may fall.

Some authentication techniques are prone to false negatives. Forexample, when attempting to associate a user name with a credit cardnumber, false negatives can result if a credit card brand is notsupported by the agency being used for verification or if the user'sname provided differs (even slightly) from the name registered for thecredit card number. Additionally, it is conceivable that telephonecall-back may not be successful, for example, if a telephone carrier isunsupported. To compensate for such known false positives, in someimplementations a user can be awarded some minimal authentication scorefor attempting to authenticate. For example, depending on the knownrobustness of a particular authentication technique and the known falsenegative rate, the user may be awarded some points toward theirauthentication score for repeated yet failed authentication attempts, onthe premise that a legitimate user will try authenticating several timeswith the same credentials before giving up.

In some implementations, the calculation of an authentication score canbe a weighted sum where each constituent has a maximum possible scorecontribution on a point scale. The constituents can be: (1) whetherthere has been a successful authentication attempt and what techniquewas used; and (2) whether there were failed authentication attempts andis so, the number of failed attempts, the technique used and whether theuser provided the same credentials for each attempt.

Referring now to FIG. 4C, a flowchart shows an example process 440 forauthenticating a user. Online content is obtained, in one or morecomputers, for public online display, e.g., from multiple contributors(Step 442). The online content includes initial content and reviews ofinitial content. In some implementations, a system 400 such as thatshown in FIG. 4A can be used to implement the process 440. In such anexample, the online content can be received by the content manager 402from authors 404 and users in the community 408. An authentication scoreis determined for a contributor of the multiple contributors (Step 444).Referring again to the above example, the content manager 402 candetermine the authentication score.

In some implementations, determining an authentication score includesreceiving a name and personal information from the contributor. A thirdparty source is used to determine whether the name and the personalinformation are associated. For example, if the personal information isa telephone number, then a telephone provider can be contacted to verifythat the name provided and the telephone number are associated. Inanother example, if the personal information is a credit card number, acredit agency is contacted to determine if the name and credit cardnumber are associated. In yet another example, if an identificationnumber for tax filing is provided (e.g., a SSN or TIN), a credit agencyor the Internal Revenue Service can be contacted to determine if thename and identification number are associated. Other examples arepossible, and the ones recited here are for illustrative purposes. Basedon the determination of the name and personal information beingassociated or not, an authentication score for the contributor isdetermined. The contributor's online content is published online fordisplay on one or more computers with the contributor's name andauthentication score (or a representation of the authentication score)included in association with the online content (Step 446). For example,the online content can be published by a publisher included in thepublishers 406.

In reference to Step 446, although an authentication score may bedetermined, the score itself may or may not be displayed. In someimplementations, a representation of the authentication score isdisplayed, some illustrative examples of which include a graphical badgeshown along with the contributor's name or a number of stars. In someimplementations, the authentication score is implicitly represented, forexample, by the contributor's ranking in a ranking of “top contributors”or “leaderboards”.

Credibility Factor

In some implementations, a credibility factor can be determined for anauthor of online content item. The credibility factor can be associatedwith the particular online content item. That is, if the author hasauthored multiple online content items, the author can have multiplecredibility factors, which may be different. By way of illustration, theauthor may have a relatively high credibility factor for online contentitems written in the subject area of root canals, particularly if theauthor is a dentist, but may have a lower credibility factor for anonline content item written in the subject area of muscle cars. Thecredibility factor, or a representation thereof (e.g., a graphicalsymbol) can be displayed for online publication in association with theauthor and/or the author's online content item.

In some implementations, the credibility factor is calculated by one ormore computers, e.g., without human intervention. In otherimplementations, where human operations are included in the process ofcalculating the credibility factor, the credibility factor is determinedby a computer by receiving user input specifying the credibility factoror otherwise retrieving the credibility factor or information that canbe used to then calculate the credibility factor.

The credibility factor can be used, at least in part, in determining theranking of the online content item in a set of search results. Thecredibility factor is determined based on information about the authorverified to be true (referred to herein as “verified information”).Various types of information about the author can be used and each canhave varying effects on the author's credibility factor. The followingare some illustrative examples of types of information, and how they canbe verified, that can be used alone or in combination, to determine anauthor's credibility factor. In some instances, the author is requiredto provide verification of the information about him/herself. In otherinstances a third party source can be contacted, either manually orautomatically, to verify the information.

If the author is an authenticated user belonging to a community of userssupplying and reviewing online content items, for example, the community408 shown in the system 400 of FIG. 4A, the length of time the authorhas been an authenticated user can influence the author's credibilityfactor.

If the author has an associated authentication score, as is discussedabove, the authentication score can influence the author's credibilityfactor. Whether or not the author has an authentication score per se,one or more of the factors discussed above that can impact the author'sauthentication score can also be considered when determining theauthor's credibility factor.

If the author has an associated reputation score, as discussed above,the reputation score can influence the author's credibility factor.Whether or not the author has a reputation score per se, one or more ofthe factors discussed above that can impact an author's reputation scorecan also be considered when determine the author's credibility factor.By way of illustrative example, if the author has a reputation of givinghigh or low quality feedback on reviews, websites, etc., the author'scredibility factor can be influenced. If the author has a reputation ofproviding high or low quality original content, the author's credibilityfactor can also be influenced.

Information about the author can include whether the author is a memberof an organization. Whether the organization is known and/or credibleand/or has licensing requirements (e.g., a professional organizationrequiring a license to practice medicine, law, etc.) can also influencethe author's credibility factor. Verifying the author is a member of theorganization in and of itself can influence the credibility factor,since it goes toward confirming the author is a real person who exists.The validity of the organization itself and whether or not it isrelevant to the topic of the online content item additionally caninfluence the credibility factor. If the organization requires membersto have a license (e.g., to practice law or medicine), this can furtherinfluence the author's credibility factor, since such organizationstypically establish and police minimum requirements for licensing interms of ethics, knowledge and the like.

The information about the author can include the author's employment(past or present) and whether or not the employment is in a fieldrelated to the topic of the online content item. Verifying the author isan employee of a particular employer can influence the credibilityfactor, since it tends to confirm the author is a real, existing person.Whether or not the author's employment is in a field related to thetopic of the author's online content item can further influence theauthor's credibility score. For example, if the author writes an onlinecontent item about food safety inspection practices and is found to beemployed as a food inspector at a well known food supplier, theverification of employment can positively influence the author'scredibility factor. By contrast, if the author was determined to be amechanical engineer employed in the oil and gas industry, theverification of employment may have a neutral or negative influence onthe author's credibility factor.

The information about the author can include a degree or othercertification of education or training. Whether or not the author holdsthe degree or certification claimed can be verified and can influencethe author's credibility factor. The relevancy of the author's educationor training to the author's online content item can also be used toinfluence the credibility factor. The credibility of the institutiongranting the degree or certification can also influence the author'scredibility factor. For example, whether or not a university isaccredited, where the university or college ranks and whether or not theinstitution has a focus on a subject matter relevant to the author'sonline content item are all considerations that can influence theauthor's credibility factor.

If the author has published more than one online content item, thepercentage and/or volume of the author's other published online contentitems that are relevant to the online content item under considerationcan influence the author's credibility factor.

If the author's online content item is cited by one or more otherauthors, this can influence the author's credibility score. For example,if the author has been cited by other authenticated authors, or authorswith high credibility factors, the author's own credibility factor canbe positively influenced. Whether or not the other authors citing theauthor's online content item are well-known in the same topic as theonline content item can also influence the author's credibility factor.

If the author has received awards or other forms of public recognitionin the topic area of the online content item or for the online contentitem itself, the author's credibility factor can be positivelyinfluenced. If the author's online content item is published by apublisher that regularly publishes works of authors who have receivedawards or other public recognition, thereby increasing the credibilityof the publisher itself, the author's credibility score can beinfluenced.

If the author has co-authored the online content item, the credibilityof the co-authors can also influence the author's credibility factor.For example, if the co-authors are all well known and respected in theindustry related to the subject matter of the online content item, theauthor's credibility score can be positively influenced.

If the online content item receives positive feedback from relevantorganizations, for example, is recommended by a consumer, business,government, hobby or professional organization, the author's credibilityfactor can be positively influenced.

The level of success of the author, either in relation to a particularonline content item, or generally, can be measured to some degree by thesuccess of the author's published works, for example, whether one ormore have reached best seller lists or by revenue generated from one ormore publications. If this information is available and indicatedrelative success of the author in a particular field, this canpositively influence the author's credibility factor.

As mentioned above, in some instances, the author is required to provideverification of the information about him/herself. In someimplementations, the author can be provided a questionnaire where theauthor must answer certain questions to provide information abouthis/herself. The questionnaire can be provided electronically, forexample, in an email, text message or by way of a website, e.g., inresponse to the author publishing (or requesting to publish) the onlinecontent item to the website. Certain of the questions may require theauthor to also provide verification of the answer. For example, if theauthor is asked if they have a university degree and they answer yes,the author may be requested to provide a scanned copy of the degree, acertified copy of his/her transcripts from the degree-grantinginstitution, or authorization for the degree-granting institution toprovide verification directly to the party generating the author'scredibility factor.

In other instances a third party source can be contacted, eithermanually or automatically, to verify the information about the author,and the information can be obtained either directly from the author orindirectly. By way of example, by crawling a webpage including apublication of an author's online content item, the author's name andpotentially other information about the author can be determined.Inquiries can then be made (automated or manual) to organizations,educational institutions and/or other sources of information to gatherinformation about the author. For example, one or more organizations canbe contacted to determine whether or not the author is a member. Asanother example, one or more educational institutions can be contactedto determine whether or not the author attended the institution as astudent.

Telephone directories can be queried to determine an address andtelephone number of an author, which information can then be useful infurther searches, for example, to narrow a search to a geographicalarea. Online content can be crawled or otherwise searched to look forany references to the author and/or the author's online content item.The above queries can be made with or without the assistance of theauthor. Queries to determine information about the author, or to verifyinformation already determined about the author, can be automatedwithout human interaction, with the assistance of one or more humanoperators, or by a combination of the two.

Referring now to FIG. 4D, a flowchart shows an example process 450 forusing an author's credibility factor when ranking a set of searchresults. An online content item authored by an author is obtained foronline publication (Step 452). For example, in some implementations, theonline content item can be received by the content manager 402 from theone of the authors 404, as shown in FIG. 4A. In other implementations,the online content item authored by an author is obtained from adocument repository, retrieved from the World Wide Web (e.g., from a webcrawler), or retrieved from a library of digitized data (e.g., scannedbooks and/or articles), to name some illustrative examples. The natureof the online content item can be varied, and examples include: contenton a webpage; an article; a scanned book; a commentary on an article,book or otherwise. For the online content item, a credibility factor isdetermined for the author (Step 454). The credibility score is based onverified information about the author. In response to a query for onlinecontent, a set of search results is generated that includes the onlinecontent item (Step 456). The ranking of the online content item in theset can be determined, at least in part, based on the credibility factorof the author (Step 458). The ranked set of search results can then bepresented to a user providing the search query (Step 459).

Referring to Step 452, obtaining an author's online content item can beperformed in a number of ways. In some implementations, the authorsubmits the online content item, e.g., over a network, to a computerwhere the online content item is received. In other implementations, theonline content item is obtained at a first computer from a web crawlerthat retrieved the online content item over the World Wide Web. In otherimplementations, the online content item is received at a first computerover a network from a document repository. For example, the onlinecontent item can be a book or article that has been scanned into anelectronic format and published online by a publisher or included in alibrary of similar content items. The above are just some examples ofhow the online content item can be obtained, and other techniques arepossible.

Monetization

Monetization or rewards from such a system may take a number of forms.For example, where a system is associated with a search engine, therewards may take the form of prominence in search results.

One main source of monetization may come from targeted advertising. Inparticular, pages may be provided with areas in which advertisements aredisplayed. Display of or user selections of the advertisements maytrigger an ad payment event, and the content manager who places the adsmay be compensated according to a pre-existing agreement by theadvertiser. The content manager may then pass a portion of thecompensation to the publisher (i.e., the operator of the page on whichthe ad was placed). The particular ads may be selected so as to matchthe content of the pages. The GOOGLE ADSENSE system is an example ofsuch an ad placement system.

Also, authors or publishers may be rewarded by being provided privilegesor credits with various services. For example, certain authors may alsobe trying to sell a product, and may wish to advertise that product. Asa result, such authors may request advertising credits from anorganization like GOOGLE. As one example, a home audio magazine maysubmit a number of informative articles on the basics of setting up ahome theatre. Users who visit the page may click on advertisements forhome theatre gear, and the magazine/webpage publisher may be grantedadvertising credits that it can use to promote its magazine. In short,the magazine publisher may recycle certain content so that it can easilyobtain money to promote its new, paid content. The particular level ofpayout, as when payout is in cash, may depend on the reputation of thepublisher, author, and/or content.

Monetization may also come directly from consumers. For example,consumers may keep an account with the content management organization(e.g., GOOGLE) and may make payments as they encounter and choose toread particular pieces of content. The content management organizationcan then split the proceeds with the publisher and/or the author(s) in amanner like the splitting of advertising revenue discussed above. In oneexample, the content management system may track a substantial number ofpublishers and provide access to users under a subscription model, wherethe subscription proceeds are split among the publishers according tothe level of access that was made of their particular pages.

Also, users may be provided with search results for paid content and maybe shown a portion of the paid content for free. They may then be shownthe cost of receiving the full content and may choose to have theiraccount debited for that amount before being shown the full content. Inthis manner, users may determine whether the content is something theywant, without having to pay anything, and may pay only when theyactually get the useful information. Also, access to the detailedinformation may be conditioned on the user logging in and identifyingthemselves to the system.

Such payment from users may occur by applying a charge to a creditaccount of the user (e.g., a submitted credit card) or by taking a setamount from the user and then drawing that amount down as the useraccesses content. Such payments may also occur using a mechanism such asa GOOGLE CHECKOUT shopping cart, where the user can select the contentthey would like and then choose to pay for its using standardmechanisms.

Referring now to FIG. 5, an example process 500 for an owner orcollaborator of a knol to review suggested edits and modify the contentsof a knol is shown. The owner or collaborator enters into an edit modewith respect to the knol (Step 502). For example, a knol user interfacecan be provided to view the knol, and an “edit knol” control can beselected by the owner or collaborator. The owner or collaborator canthen be requested to enter a user name and password, or otherwiseidentify themselves, such that they can enter the edit mode with theappropriate access entitled to them on account of their status as anowner or collaborator.

The owner or collaborator is provided with all suggested edits that arecurrently pending with respect to the current public-facing version ofthe knol (Step 504). That is, any suggested edits that were input byothers since the owner or any collaborator last entered the edit modeand changed the public-facing version of the knol are presented, as wellas any suggested edits that were carried over from a previous version,which shall be discussed further below.

The owner or collaborator can view the suggested edits, for example, inthe order in which they were received. For each suggested edit, theowner or collaborator can select to accept the suggested edit, rejectthe suggested edit or hold the suggested edit (i.e., neither accept norreject) (Step 506). The suggested edits can be presented to the owner orcollaborator in a mark-up mode, for example, showing deletions asstrike-outs and additions in bold, underlined and/or in a contrastingcolor. The mark-up shows the differences between the suggested edits andthe current public-facing version of the knol.

Once there are no further suggested edits to review (“No” branch ofdecision step 508), the owner or collaborator optionally can inputadditional edits of their own (Step 510) or can end the editing process.Upon ending the editing process, the public-facing version of the knolis modified (Step 512).

If the owner or collaborator chose to hold one or more suggested edits,then the held suggested edits are carried over to the next version ofthe knol. That is, if the current public-facing version of the knolbefore the editing session is “Version 1”, and the public-facing versionof the knol after the editing session is “Version 2”, then the heldsuggested edits are now pending with respect to Version 2 of the knol.The owner or a collaborator can then, perhaps at a later time, make adecision whether to apply the carried over suggested edits to Version 2or to reject them altogether.

In one implementation, each suggested edit can be applied like a layeron top of the public version. Visual highlights or strike-out mark-upscan indicate sections of the text that have been removed or added. Themark-up can be color-coded to an author that made the suggestion.

In one implementation, a conflict resolution feature is provided suchthat an owner or collaborator can resolve conflicts as between twodifferent suggested edits. For example, the conflictdetection/resolution sub-module 210 can provide the conflict resolutionfeature. A first delta (i.e., unaccepted suggested edit) may include anedit deleting a sentence. A second delta may include an edit to changethe wording of the sentence, but not delete the sentence. The two deltasare therefore in conflict at least with respect to this particularsentence; the owner or collaborator can only accept either the first orsecond delta, but not both.

The conflicting content can be presented in a distinctive manner toindicate the conflict. The owner or collaborator can be required toresolve the conflict before continuing to edit the knol. In thisparticular example, the conflict can be resolved by: (1) rejecting bothdeltas; (2) accepting the first delta and rejecting the second delta; or(3) rejecting the first delta and accepting the second delta. If theconflict as between the first and second deltas is limited to only aportion of the one or both of the two deltas, i.e., one or both deltasincluded other suggested edits that were not in conflict with eachother, the conflict resolution can be limited to just the conflictingportion of the deltas. That is, if the second approach above is taken,the second delta can be rejected only insofar as the conflict, and thesuggested edits in the balance of the second delta can be accepted orrejected by the owner or collaborator, as they see fit.

A conflict detection mechanism (e.g., conflict detection/resolutionsub-module 210) can be employed to detect conflicts between suggestededits. In one implementation, the conflict detection mechanism uses amodified version of a three-way merge algorithm. A typical three-waymerge algorithm looks for overlapping edits to content and assumes thatif there is overlap there is a conflict. Even if the overlap region isonly a relatively small portion of the overall two edits, the entire twoedits are flagged as being in conflict. By contrast, the modifiedthree-way merge algorithm applied here can reduce the region identifiedas the conflict region to the actual content in conflict. Further, therecan be an examination of the conflict region to determine whether anactual (rather than assumed) conflict exists. That is, it is possiblethat two overlapping edits make the same edit to a word to correct for aspelling error. In that case, there is in fact no conflict, as bothedits can be accepted.

An optional comment can be appended at the time of rejection or approvalof a suggested edit. In additional, any comment appended to a suggestededit can be replied to by the owner or collaborator. An edit can remainin an edit log and be marked as accepted or discarded. In one examplethe edit log is included in the editing information 318 in the datastore 312. All edits that contributed to the current public facingversion of the section can be listed. In the case that the edit was theresult of accepting suggested edits, those suggested edits can be listedas “children” of the authoritative edit (i.e., the edit of the owner orcollaborator). At each editing step, an “undo” operation can besupported, such that any previous version can be reverted to.

In one implementation, when someone other than an owner or collaboratorenters an edit mode to make a suggested edit to the knol content, thatperson is not privy to other suggested edits already within the“suggested edits module”, and/or comments attached to earlier or pendingsuggested edits. That is, the person can only input their suggested editwithout viewing editing history, pending edits, etc. In anotherimplementation, such a person can view the pending edits in thesuggested edits module at the time of inputting their own suggestededit. However, their edit will be relative to the current public-facingversion of the knol, not relative to any pending suggested edits in thesuggested edits module. In other implementations, only certain personsthat are neither an owner nor a collaborator are authorized to viewother edits and/or an edit log, history or edits, etc., and would haveto authenticate their identity before being granted access to the otheredits.

In one implementation, a person editing a knol can compare any twoversions of the knol content, or a section thereof, and see theadditions and deletions that were performed in order to bring the olderversion toward the newer version. These additions and deletions can berepresented with mark-up that is similar to the suggested edit mark-up.In some implementations, another view can allow the entire knol to behighlighted in colors corresponding to the ownership of each word in thedocument, where ownership can be defined as the person who added aparticular word into the document.

In some implementations, discussion threads can be attached to a knol(see 320, FIG. 3). The threads can be searchable, filterable (by date,author, etc.) and generally viewed in reverse chronological ordering ofthe last time the discussion thread was created or any reply was made.In some implementations, comments and edits to a knol are searchable byexplicitly searching knol comments, but they do not themselves come upas web search results.

The knol user interface can provide a page editor. In an edit mode, theauthor and authorized users (e.g., collaborators) can modify page-levelproperties and rearrange components within the knol. For example,subject to permission limits, the page editor can be used to edit metainformation about a knol. Examples of meta information that can bemodified using the page editor include: page name, authors list, boolindicating allowed contributions, permissions, creative-commons leveland revenue sharing strategy. In one implementation, the metainformation can be modified inline or in a separate page. The metainformation can be displayed as simple key/value pairs in a form.

In one implementation, in addition to meta information, otherinformation about the knol's table of contents or section arrangementand configuration can be edited. By editing the table of contents, theunderlying sections can be adjusted accordingly. For example, a newsection can be inserted at a selected position in the table of contents,a section can be deleted from the table of contents or a section can bemoved (e.g., dragged and dropped) within the table of contents.

In one implementation, a paste operation can be used to create a knol.For example, text or other content can be pasted from a clipboard as atransclusion (live feed), as a template (inherit the template of theoriginal) and/or by copying the content.

The knol user interface can provide a history of the knol. That is, theknol's revision history can be viewed, including, information about whomade each revision and how much they changed. The differences betweentwo versions of the knol can be viewed, showing the changes (“diff”)made as between the two particular versions. The history can be used torollback to a particular version of the knol. In some implementations,only the owner and collaborators can view the history of the knol. Inother implementations, persons other than the owner and collaboratorscan view history, either all other persons or else certain personseither identified by name or meeting a certain criteria.

In one implementation, the knol user interface is implemented using amixture of Jotscript, client, server and translucent javascript and XMLplug-in components. Jotscript and the server-side jot library can giveaccess to features such as page and data transclusion, inheritance,search, templates (applying “styles”) and forms (applying particularviews and interaction-affordances upon a page). Pages can be storednatively in XML with XHTML in the “main/text” property of a node. A nodeis a container of properties.

There can be three categories of pages: knol pages, author pages andadmin pages. A knol page can include all of the properties constitutinga knol including edit nodes (i.e., suggested edits to a knol page) anddiscussion nodes (i.e., pieces of dialog about a page). An author pagecan include all of the properties describing an author (i.e., anauthorized user), and tool and administration pages for authors. Theauthor's tools can be anchored off a knol page, which itself describesthe author. Admin pages can include tools for trusted administrators.Each page type can have a set of forms, where a form behaves as a filterselecting subsets of the page for display and providing affordances formanipulating parts of the data. In some implementations, authors andauthorized users are not permitted to write javascript or server-sidejavascript. Rather, they are restricted to particular data formats andplug-ins.

As mentioned above, a node is a container of properties. Objects can bestored in nodes. The following is a description of some objects that canbe stored in nodes to implement the knol user interface. A knol can be anode of user-created content visible as a web-page or as a transclusion.A knol can have other knols transcluded as sections within the knol.Knol metadata can be a node associated in a one-to-one relationship witha knol and includes metadata about that knol. For example, relatedknols, discussions, edits and authors can be included in knol metadata.A write to a knol increments the knol's user-visible version number, buta write to a knol metadata does not.

An author can be an abstract class that can own and create knols. Anauthor is represented as a node including author-specific properties(e.g., permissions, preferences, etc.). An author can be associated in aone-to-one relationship with an author-knol, where an author-knol is anautobiographical knol used as a home-page for that author. A group canrefer to an author that aggregates other authors.

A message is a node including text that is written by another author andthen sent to another object where others can find and transact with it.A discussion is a note posted as a reply to a knol or to anotherdiscussion item. An edit is an attempt to modify the content of a knol.An edit-response is sent by an author in response to an edit, e.g.,accept, reject, discuss, etc. An offer is an attempt to grant ownershipor permissions to an author. An offer-response is an author accepting ordeclining the given offer. A request-review object can be an authorsoliciting a peer review. A request-review-response object can be anauthor accepting or declining a peer review. If accepted, the review canbe done as a discussion or knol object.

The nodes discussed above can have none, some or all of the followingcommon properties. A path property can be a path to a page. A nameproperty can be a page's name. A revision property can be a page'srevision. An i.d. property can be a page's i.d. A user property can be auser. A time property (or editTime property) can show when the page wasedited. A createTime property can show when the page was created. AcreateUser property can show who created the page. A main/text propertycan be xhtml content of the page/message.

A knol can have a unique URL, e.g., {site}/{title}/{author_url} wheresite is a website (e.g., knol.google.com), the title is the knol's titleand the author_url can include an author name and/or disambiguationnumber. Past versions of a named document can be retrieved by appendinga revision CGI argument, e.g., “?revision=42”. A URL including arevision number can be usable as a permanent historical link. Changingthe title of a knol can imply renaming it and changing its URL. If anauthor's name changes, or if a page is transferred from one author toanother, that can result in renaming all of the author's page URLs. If anodeID is specified, e.g., “?nodeID=4747”, the nodeID can be persistentacross renaming operations. In one implementation, a hit against the{site} can be resolved into a search for {query}/{author}, where thequery and author can be soft/incomplete matches. Internally, knols canrefer to each other using the nodeID field. In other implementations,the knol can have a permanent URL that can be a machine readablesequence of pseudo-random alphanumeric letters permanently associatedwith the knol irrespective of any later changes to the knol's title orownership.

The main/text property of a knol supplies the knol's content. Thecontent may in turn include transcluded knols, which may or may not havetheir own, different authors. Consider the following illustrativeexample. A Mrs. P is the Dean of Astronomy, Astrology and Cosmology at acertain school. She wishes to author a knol on Dark Matter. Mrs. Pcreates the knol and then creates three knols transcluded as sections,calling them Chapter A, Chapter B and Chapter C. Mrs. P adds Mr. K asco-author of Chapter A, Mr. G as co-author of Chapter B and Mr. R asco-author of Chapter C. The co-authors in turn delegate the actual textwriting to graduate students. Mrs. P is well on the way toward producingthe knol in her name on the subject of Dark Matter.

For a given knol, it can be desired to know whether the knol is“top-level” (i.e., independently searchable) or just “content” (i.e., itwill not come up in a search as an entity in its own right, but it canbe indexed as content of a parent page). A “content” knol can beabandoned by a parent, i.e., no longer referenced by a parent page. Insome implementations, an abandoned knol is no longer visible aspublic-facing online content and is not findable in a web search, butmay be findable by reviewing past versions of a document.

Referring to FIG. 6A, an example graphical user interface 600 is shownwhereby an author of a first knol can link the first knol to a second,existing knol, either by naming the second knol or naming a URL toaccess the second knol (see user interface 610 in FIG. 6B). In theexample shown, a new knol is being linked to an existing knol entitled“The-Samoyed/Ray-Su-27354”. The properties listed in the title area 602,i.e., title, subtitle, author and date modified, can become a hyperlinkto the second knol. The URL can be a web address to access the secondknol. The contents properties 604 include the following. The imageproperty can be the first image included within the second knol. Thetable of contents can be algorithmically generated by traversing thesecond knol's contents. The abstract can be a snippet composed of thefirst few lines of the knol, following the title and subtitle. The fulltext can refer to including the entire second knol other than thoseknols that the second knol recursively includes, which can instead becoerced into the table of contents. The display properties 606 includedistinct appearance options. The inline appearance can be possible ifthe title area content is transcluded. The boxed appearance can take thetranscluded content and wrap it into a standardized frame with text flowaround it, e.g., magazine style. The section appearance can treat thetranscluded knol as a section within the parent knol.

Referring to FIG. 6C, an example graphical user interface 612 is shownwhere an author of the first knol can select a transclusion appearancefor the second knol to be transcluded in the first knol. Exampleappearances 614 a-d are shown.

Table 1 below shows some example knol page properties, including theproperty names, types, values and a description of each.

TABLE 1 Knol Page Properties Property Type Value Description TitleString Title of the page which can relate to the query that the knol isprimarily competing for (i.e., to be provided as the “best answer”).Subtitle String An optional subtitle for the page which can be used fordisambiguation. Role String Standard Indicates this is a standardcontent page, i.e., an ordinary knol. Role String Template Indicatesthis page is to be used and found as a template and not as a top- levelknol. Role String Author Indicates this page is an author's “home page”.Role String Group Indicates this page is a group's “home page”.Categories StringList A list of terms to which this belongs; these termsmay or may not be linked to other knols. Authors StringList List ofowner/admins. AuthorsPending StringList Transfers of ownership; need tobe confirmed by the recipient. AuthorsVisible Number The first n authorsare shown on the page. Contributors StringList A list of non-owners whohave rights to edit the knol. ContributorsPending StringList An offer topen a document to a contributor that needs to be confirmed by therecipient. ContributorsVisible Number The first n contributors can beshown on the page. RedirectTo String If this page is discontinued, thennon- owners who browse to it can get forwarded to a new page.Contribution/contributors String A list of those persons who haveprovided textual input to the knol; generally overlaps with the authors.Contribution/location String If text included in the knol came fromanother resource, e.g., copied from a book or other website, the sourcecan be identified and attributed. Contribution/tokens Number For eachcontributor or original source, this is the number of tokens contributedby the author. bannedReasons StringList If non-empty, this knol isbanned from display. For example, affiliate links, ads, buy buttons,spam, or spam may be reasons for a ban. The author can view and edit theknol, but the public cannot view the knol. Sections StringList A list ofthe nodeIDs of the sections. publishedVersion Integer Identifies theversion visible to the public.

The knol user interface can provide an author page including contentabout the author. Examples of content that can be included in an authorpage are: a picture of the author; author's name; statisticalinformation; author's profile; names of co-authors (and links to theirauthor pages); titles of knols authored by and/or contributed to by theauthor; a control to get an RSS feed of articles written by the author;and citations by the authors (and links thereto). The edit history ofthe particular author in relation to the knol can be viewed. In animplementation where author ratings are provided, the author's ratingcan be viewed. In one implementation, an aggregation of authors isreferred to as a “group”, and any groups to which the author is a membercan be identified.

When the author page is viewed by the author in “edit mode”, the authorcan view and edit many of his or her properties. For example, the authorcan edit the public-profile content. The author can edit accountpermissions, such as the default visibility and editability of a knol'spages and persons exempt from the defaults. The author can viewreviewers (i.e., people who have responded to the knol content) and sortsame by quality or recency. The author can invite or request someone towrite a knol or to write a review of pages of a knol of the author.Messages can be provided to the author in the edit mode, including thefollowing examples: a message about a suggested edit; notification of are-use of the author's content (e.g., by transclusion or text re-use);notification of changes in documents owned, watched or contributed to bythe author; an assertation of prior use of the author's content; atakedown demand; a takedown notification; a notification of change of atemplate used by the author; a quota/limit violation; an error message;an offer to transfer ownership; and bulk changes to properties.

Table 2 below shows examples of author page properties, including theproperty name, type and a description.

TABLE 2 Author Page Properties Property Type Description Name StringAuthor's externally visible name or nickname. Disambiguation String Zeroor more externally visible blobs of “disambiguation” text, for example,to authenticate credentials of the author. Picture String URL to imageof the author. Profile String User supplied text profile. Co-AuthorsStringList List of persons the author shares ownership of pages with.Knols/Author stringList Knols authored by the Author. Knols/contributorStringList Knols contributed to but not owned by the author.Knols/Edited StringList Knols the author has submitted edits to.Knols/Discussed StringList Knols the author has replied to in adiscussion. Knols/Reviewed StringList Knols the author has reviewed.rateLimitCreate Number Maximum frequency with which an author can createnew knols. rateLimitEdit Number Maximum frequency to edit knols.rateLimitMessage Number Maximum frequency to send messages to others.rateLimitInvite Number Maximum frequency to invite other authors.Notifications A collection of messages/alerts sent to the author.Solicitations A collection of messages/alerts sent by the author.

In one implementation, the owner of a knol may choose to display onlineadvertisements when displaying the knol. The owner typically collectsrevenue from advertisers, either directly or through a broker, fordisplaying the advertisements. In one example, the owner can participatein the AdSense advertising program provided by Google, Inc., whereinGoogle provides advertisements to display with the owner's knol. Theadvertisements can be selected to target an audience expected to beinterested in the content of the knol. If the knol has been contributedto by more than one author, then revenue generated from the onlineadvertisements can be shared between the authors. In one implementation,the author's page properties can include a property to allocate therevenue between the owners of knols to which the particular author isentitled to revenue share.

FIG. 6D shows an advanced search box directed to the searching ofknolls. The box in this example is formatted in a manner that is similarto advance search boxes for web content that are generated by GOOGLE,and the particular data fields into which a user may enter data aregenerally self-explanatory.

FIGS. 7A-7B show screen shots of a formatted discrete piece of submittedcontent. The screen shot are shots of a single web page, but withdifferent portions of the page scrolled into view.

In this example, the content is in the form of a knol. The content ispresented as a web page on a particular topic—here, insomnia. This pieceof content may be presented as a search result, where the search resultin presented in a special One Box or similar area, separated from othersearch results. Such separation may be used to indicate to a user thatthe result is, in effect, a self-contained exposition on a particulartopic that would be useful for a reader seeking an overview or detaileddiscussion about the topic. Such a result may be contrasted with otherresults, such as a corporate web page that has marketing information foran insomnia drug, a blog on which the blogger is discussing his or herparticular insomnia problems, etc.

The content is labeled with a title 700, which takes a familiar form andis placed at the top of the entry in bold text to be particularlyprominent to a viewer of the content. The body 709 of the postingincludes a well-organized description and overview of insomnia andrelated topics. The body 709 may take a variety of forms, and ahyperlinked table of contents 706 may be presented to permit consumersto see at a glance what is covered in the posting and also to jumpquickly to particular subsections within the posting by selecting ahyperlink in the table of contents 706.

Consumers or viewers of the document are also presented with a ratingssystem for the posting. A ratings indicator 702 shows the average ratingprovided by a number of users who have reviewed and rated the article,here 117 ratings. The displayed rating may simply be an arithmeticaverage of the various ratings, or may be computed in a number of otherways, such as by normalizing scores by various users to accommodate forusers that always provide high ratings and users who always provide lowratings. In addition, a rating may be checked to determine whetherfraudulent intent may be involved, such as where a user whose ratingstypically agree with the ratings of other users suddenly providesratings that are in disagreement with such other ratings, thusindicating that the user is in properly trying to push the score for theposting up or down. A “your rating” area 704 shows a user where they maysupply their own rating for the posting. The area 704 may be generatedusing scripting code a such as JavaScript code or other appropriatemechanisms so that a user may conveniently click on a rating level andhave such a rating registered for the posting. The users rating may thenbe taken into account in computing the overall article rating for theposting.

Above the ratings area, several tabs are shown by which a user may viewdifferent information about an article. In the figure, the currentlyselected tab is a view tab which allows the user to view the article orposting itself. An edit tab may permit the user to see various editsthat other users have made to the article's, such as to improve theaccuracy of the article. The user may also suggest edits for the articlethemselves with such a tab. Such edits may be pending, in that they havenot yet been added to the article that is displayed in the view tab, orthey may be accepted, such that they are incorporated in the article asit is displayed in the view tab. A revisions tab may also be selected bya user to see revisions that, for example, the author of the article hasmade to the article or approved for the article (where others have madethe revisions or edits). Such revisions may, in certain implementations,be linked to comments or edits made by users other than the author.

An author element 708 may provide information about the author of thearticle. Here, the author is Rachel Mann Burr, the director of theStanford Sleep Disorders Center at the Stanford School of Medicine. Anindicator, such as a seal in this example, or other appropriateindicator, may be used to show graphically a certain characteristic ofthe author. For example, a color of an icon associated with the authormay indicate the judged quality of the author's works. For example, newauthors who have not received many ratings from other users may not begiven an icon at all, whereas more experienced authors may be givensilver, gold, or platinum seals (or perhaps red, white, blue, pink, andpurple ribbons, as the case may be). Authors who receive bad ratings orother negative feedback from users in the community may be provided withblack seals or other indicators that the author's submissions aresuspect.

A hyperlink may also be attached to the author's name or otherappropriate element, so that members of the community may obtainadditional information about the author. Selecting the hyperlink may,for example, bring the user to a list of other articles submitted by theauthor, personal information about the author that the author has chosento make available, web search results that involve the author's name, orother similar information.

An author submission box 710 asks users whether they would like tosubmit information on the same or a similar topic, and thus become anauthor themselves. Selecting a hyperlink in the box 710 may take theuser to an editor or other similar interface by which the user may learnabout becoming an author and may also be provided with tools forauthoring and submitting content.

An advertising area 712 may contain various targeted advertisementsdirected toward the topic of the article. Such advertisements may beselected, such as by the GOOGLE ADSENSE system and process. In thisexample, for instance, advertisements for products and services relatingto insomnia and sleep have been located and displayed. Theadvertisements may generate revenue for the host of the webpage, and byextension for the author, when users click on the ads, according towell-known models for ad revenue generation and sharing.

In this particular example, the level of ad revenue sharing may dependon the reading or reputation given to the particular author. Forexample, if the author has no rating at all they may have a minor sharein ad revenue generated from their posting, while their share of thatavailable ad revenue may increase as their stature in the systemincreases, e.g., authors with a platinum or other high rating mayreceive the maximum share of revenue generated from their postings.

Referring now to FIG. 4E, a flowchart shows an example process 460 forusing a reputation score when monetizing an online content item.Multiple online content items authored by multiple authors are obtainedfor online publication (Step 462). For example, in some implementations,the multiple online content items can be obtained by the content manager402 from the authors 404, as shown in the example system of FIG. 4A. Foreach online content item, a reputation score for the correspondingauthor is determined (Step 464). The reputation score can be based onone or more reviews of the online content item provided by one or morereviewers other than the author. For example, in some implementations,the one or more reviews can be received by the content manager 402 fromusers in the community 408 and/or from the authors 404. An onlinecontent item can be published from the multiple online content itemsreceived. Publishing the online content item includes displaying theonline content item in conjunction with an advertisement (Step 466). Forexample, in some implementations the online content item can bepublished by a publisher included in the set of publishers 406. A shareof revenue for the author of the online content item for displaying theadvertisement can be determined. Determining the author's revenue sharecan be based at least in part on the reputation score of the author(Step 468).

Such a monetization system may encourage authors to generate morecontent for the system, and may particularly encourage highly capableauthors to generate content because such highly capable authors willreceive the highest compensation for their work. In addition, such asharing mechanism may benefit the publisher of the page, in that highlycompetent authors will drive greater traffic to the page, and will alsocause visitors to the page to click more often on the advertisementsshown there. In turn, users benefit by having access to contentgenerated by the highest qualified authors.

A related knols area 714 shows other postings or articles that have beendetermined by the system to have topics relating to insomnia. Forexample, here, an article by Kent Brockman relating to idiopathicinsomnia has been determined to be related to the insomnia article beingdisplayed. In addition to an image related to the other article, thetitle for the article, and the author of the article, the area 714displays the average rating for the other article, the number of userswho have viewed the article (so that a user can see whether astatistically significant number of users have contributed to therating), the number of reviews on the article, and the number ofcomments that have been provided with respect to the article. Thedetermination of whether an article is sufficiently related to thepresently-displayed article may be made by a number of different knownas mechanisms, and in particular, mechanisms that compare textual orother content from one page to textual content from other pages in anattempt to determine relatedness of topic between the two articles.

Referring now to FIG. 7B, a reviews area 716 shows links to variousreviews that users other than the author have given of the article. Suchreviews are formatted in a manner that will be familiar to the typicaluser. For instance, an image of the particular reviewer is shown, alongwith a short blurb or title for the review, the name of the reviewer,and the date on which the review was given. Using this information, aconsumer of the content may quickly determine whether a particularreview is positive or negative, whether it was provided by someone theytrust, and whether it is stale or fresh. By clicking on hyperlinksrelated to a review or a reviewer's name, a user may be taken to thereview and read it, or taken to a personal page that discussesinformation related to the reviewer, such as personal information,articles written by the reviewer, or other reviews written by thereviewer. In addition, though not shown here, a reputation score orother indicator for the reviewer may be shown, such as to indicate theiraverage rating for various articles, or to show their reputation in acommunity, as determined by the ratings of other users for contentgenerated by each particular reviewer.

Other author articles area 718 lists additional articles that have beensubmitted to the system by the author or authors of the article that theuser is currently reviewing. In this example, a title of each article isshown, along with a snippet from the article, an average rating for thearticle, a number of times the article has been viewed, and the numberof comments submitted for the article. Such an area 718 may allow a userto see quickly that, for example, the author has generated a number ofarticles on different subtopics in the area of insomnia, which may leadthe reader to understand that the author may be an expert in insomniaand is thus capable of generating high-quality articles. Also, thetitles of the articles and the snippets may lead the reader to lookdeeper for other articles in an area and thus learn more about thatarea. The number of views and comments on an article may also indicateto a reader whether the article was of interest to others, and perhapswhether the article may have raised provocative or controversial pointsthat drew enough interest from readers to justify comments from thereaders.

Turning now to FIG. 7C, and lower down in the webpage, is a footer area720 for the article. This area contains endnotes that may be referencedin the body of the article, along with a bibliography of referencescited in the article. Such an area may have the same effect that itwould in a typical non-electronic document, leading readers to moredetailed information to support positions stated in an article, and alsoleading readers to other sources where they can learn more about a topicor may better verify what is stated in an article. In addition, in anelectronic format, the references may be hyperlinked, where they areavailable on the Internet, so that the reader may readily be taken tosuch references. In addition, where the references are books or otherdocuments that may be purchased, they may be referenced and hyperlink,such as by an ISBN number, to a commercial website that is willing tosell the book or other reference.

FIG. 7D shows comments 722 that other users have submitted regarding thearticle. In this example, each of the comments appears to have been madein Latin. The organization of the comments may occur in a familiar form,with comments arranged beneath the article and sorted according tochronological order, by ratings for the articles or for the authors ofthe comments, or by other mechanisms. Where the system requiresauthentication of authors and commentors, information showing theidentity of each commentor may also be provided as shown. Users may alsorate comments in a manner similar to rating of articles or othercontent, as shown by the second comment in the figure made by DaleDiddier. In this instance, the comment itself may have received ratingsfrom other readers. Alternatively, the rating shown here may represent arating that the comment tour provided on the main article. Ratings oncomments may be used by a system in a manner similar to ratings onarticles, as such as by having the ratings affect a reputation score forthe commentor, or the author of the comment.

An entry box 724 for a comment on a comment is shown at the bottom ofthe first comment. Here, an author or other users may post a reply to acomment. In this manner, a discussion may be had in a familiar mannersuch that incorrect or ill-advised comments may be corrected by otherusers and the total information conveyed by the site may be improved.

FIG. 7E shows the bottom of this particular webpage, with the provisionof a comment submission area 726. In this example, the user viewing thepage has not been logged into the system, has thus not beenauthenticated, and is blocked from commenting (with the page suggestingthat they log in if they would like to submit a comment). In general,the user may enter a title that summarizes their comment, and may writethe text of the comment in a familiar and well-known fashion. The usermay also submit a rating for the article that will be displayed withtheir comment. And again, at the very bottom of the page, the user isinvited to submit their own article on the topic or on a related topic.

The inventions and all of the functional operations described in thisspecification can be implemented in digital electronic circuitry, or incomputer hardware, firmware, software, or in combinations of them.Apparatus of the invention can be implemented in a computer programproduct tangibly embodied in a machine-readable storage device forexecution by a programmable processor; and method steps of the inventioncan be performed by a programmable processor executing a program ofinstructions to perform functions of the invention by operating on inputdata and generating output.

The invention can be implemented advantageously in one or more computerprograms that are executable on a programmable system including at leastone programmable processor coupled to receive data and instructionsfrom, and to transmit data and instructions to, a data storage system,at least one input device, and at least one output device. Each computerprogram can be implemented in a high-level procedural or object-orientedprogramming language, or in assembly or machine language if desired; andin any case, the language can be a compiled or interpreted language.

Suitable processors include, by way of example, both general and specialpurpose microprocessors. Generally, a processor will receiveinstructions and data from a read-only memory and/or a random accessmemory. Generally, a computer will include one or more mass storagedevices for storing data files; such devices include magnetic disks,such as internal hard disks and removable disks; a magneto-opticaldisks; and optical disks. Storage devices suitable for tangiblyembodying computer program instructions and data include all forms ofnon-volatile memory, including by way of example semiconductor memorydevices, such as EPROM, EEPROM, and flash memory devices; magnetic diskssuch as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks;and CD-ROM disks. Any of the foregoing can be supplemented by, orincorporated in, ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits).

To provide for interaction with a user, the invention can be implementedon a computer system having a display device such as a monitor or LCDscreen for displaying information to the user and a keyboard and apointing device such as a mouse or a trackball by which the user canprovide input to the computer system. The computer system can beprogrammed to provide a graphical user interface through which computerprograms interact with users.

Referring now to FIG. 8, a schematic diagram of an example computersystem 800 is shown. The system 800 can be used for the operationsdescribed in association with the process 300 shown in FIG. 3, accordingto one implementation. For example, one or more of the systems 800 canbe used to implement the content management server 101 (see FIGS. 1 and2).

The system 800 includes a processor 810, a memory 820, a storage device830, and an input/output device 840. Each of the components 810, 820,830, and 840 can, for example, be interconnected using a system bus 850.The processor 810 is capable of processing instructions for executionwithin the system 800. In one implementation, the processor 810 is asingle-threaded processor. In another implementation, the processor 810is a multi-threaded processor. The processor 810 is capable ofprocessing instructions stored in the memory 820 or on the storagedevice 830 to display graphical information for a user interface on theinput/output device 840. In some embodiments, a parallel processing setof systems 800 connected over a network may be employed, clustered intoone or more server centers.

The memory 820 stores information within the system 800. In oneimplementation, the memory 820 is a computer-readable storage medium,whereby the computer-readable storage medium is not a signal. In oneimplementation, the memory 820 is a volatile memory unit. In anotherimplementation, the memory 820 is a non-volatile memory unit.

The storage device 830 is capable of providing mass storage for thesystem 800. In one implementation, the storage device 830 is acomputer-readable medium. In various different implementations, thestorage device 830 can, for example, include a hard disk device, anoptical disk device, or some other large capacity storage device.

The input/output device 840 provides input/output operations for thesystem 800. In one implementation, the input/output device 840 includesa keyboard and/or pointing device. In another implementation, theinput/output device 840 includes a display unit for displaying graphicaluser interfaces.

A module, as the term is used throughout this application, can be apiece of hardware that encapsulates a function, can be firmware or canbe a software application. A module can perform one or more functions,and one piece of hardware, firmware or software can perform thefunctions of more than one of the modules described herein. Similarly,more than one piece of hardware, firmware and/or software can be used toperform the function of a single module described herein.

It is to be understood the implementations are not limited to particularsystems or processes described which may, of course, vary. It is also tobe understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose ofdescribing particular implementations only, and is not intended to belimiting. As used in this specification, the singular forms “a”, “an”and “the” include plural referents unless the content clearly indicatesotherwise. Thus, for example, reference to “a publisher” includes two ormore publishers and reference to “an ad” includes a combination of twoor more or different types of ads.

A number of implementations have been described. Nevertheless, it willbe understood that various modifications may be made without departingfrom the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, otherimplementations are within the scope of this application.

1. A computer implemented online-content management method, comprising:receiving, at a computer server system, online content from a pluralityof contributors for public online display, wherein the online contentincludes content and reviews of content; determining, with the computerserver system and for a contributor of the plurality of contributors, anauthentication score representing a strength of authentication of thecontributor and that is a function of whether (a) the contributorinitiated contact with an entity associated with the computer serversystem or instead (b) an entity associated with the computer serversystem initiated contact with the contributor; and publishing online fordisplay on one or more second computer systems, the contributor's nameand a representation of the contributor's authentication score inassociation with the online content received from the contributor. 2.The method of claim 1, wherein determining the authentication scorefurther comprises: receiving a name and personal information from thecontributor; determining from a third party source whether the name andthe personal information are associated; and based on the determination,determining the authentication score for the contributor.
 3. The methodof claim 2, wherein the personal information is a telephone number, anddetermining from a third party source includes confirming with atelephone provider that the name and telephone number are associated. 4.The method of claim 3, further comprising: providing the contributor atoken; and calling the telephone number and requiring a person whoanswers to provide the token.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein thepersonal information is a credit card number, and determining from athird party source includes confirming with a credit agency that thename and credit card number are associated.
 6. The method of claim 2,wherein the personal information is an identification number used fortax filing and determining from a third party source includes confirmingwith a credit agency or the Internal Revenue Service that the number andname are associated.
 7. A computer implemented online-content managementmethod, comprising: receiving, at a computer server system, onlinecontent from a plurality of contributors for public online display,wherein the online content includes content and reviews of content;determining, with the computer server system, an authentication scorefor a contributor of the plurality of contributors, comprising:receiving a name and personal information from the contributor;determining from a third party source whether the name and the personalinformation are associated; and based on the determination, determiningthe authentication score for the contributor, the authentication scorerepresenting a strength of authentication of the contributor and being afunction of whether (a) the contributor initiated contact with an entityassociated with the computer server system or (b) an entity associatedwith the computer server system initiated contact with the contributor;and publishing online for display, on one or more second computersystems, the contributor's name and a representation of thecontributor's authentication score in association with the onlinecontent received from the contributor.
 8. A computer implemented methodfor authenticating a contributor to a collection of online content,comprising: receiving, in a computer server system, a request from thecontributor to register as an authenticated contributor; receiving, inthe computer server system, a name and personal information from thecontributor; accessing data at a third party source, using the computerserver system, to determine if the name and the personal information areassociated; and in response to a positive determination that the nameand personal information are associated, authenticating the contributorby providing, with the computer server system, an authentication scorerepresenting a strength of the authentication of the contributor andthat is a function of whether (a) the contributor initiated contact withan entity associated with the computer server system or instead (b) anentity associated with the computer server system initiated contact withthe contributor, wherein the authentication score is lower than if theentity associated with the computer server system had initiated therequest to register as the authenticated contributor.
 9. The method ofclaim 8, wherein the personal information is a telephone number, anddetermining that they are associated comprises confirming with atelephone provider that the name and telephone number are associated.10. The method of claim 9, further comprising: providing the contributora token; and calling the telephone number and requiring a person whoanswers to provide the token.
 11. The method of claim 8, wherein thepersonal information is a credit card number, and determining that theyare associated comprises confirming with a credit agency that the nameand credit card number are associated.
 12. The method of claim 8,wherein the personal information is an identification number used fortax filing and determining that they are associated comprises confirmingwith a credit agency or the Internal Revenue Service that the number andname are associated.
 13. A computer-readable storage medium havinginstructions encoded thereon, which, when executed by a processor, causethe processor to perform operations comprising: receiving, at a computerserver system, online content from a plurality of contributors forpublic online display, wherein the online content includes content andreviews of content; determining, with the computer server system and fora contributor of the plurality of contributors, an authentication scorerepresenting a strength of authentication of the contributor and that isa function of whether (a) the contributor initiated contact with anentity associated with the computer server system or (b) an entityassociated with the computer server system initiated contact with thecontributor; and publishing online for display, on one or more secondcomputers, the contributor's name and a representation of thecontributor's authentication score in association with the onlinecontent received from the contributor.
 14. The computer-readable storagemedium of claim 13, wherein determining the authentication score furthercomprises: receiving a name and personal information from thecontributor; determining from a third party source whether or not thename and the personal information are associated; and based on thedetermination, determining the authentication score for the contributor.15. The computer-readable medium storage of claim 14, wherein thepersonal information is a telephone number, and determining from a thirdparty source includes confirming with a telephone provider that the nameand telephone number are associated.
 16. The computer-readable mediumstorage of claim 15, further comprising: providing the contributor atoken; and calling the telephone number and requiring a person whoanswers to provide the token.
 17. The computer-readable medium storageof claim 14, wherein the personal information is a credit card number,and determining from a third party source includes confirming with acredit agency that the name and credit card number are associated. 18.The computer-readable medium storage of claim 14, wherein the personinformation is an identification number used for tax filing anddetermining from a third party source includes confirming with a creditagency or the Internal Revenue Service that the number and name areassociated.
 19. A system comprising: a processor; a storage devicecoupled to the processor and configurable for storing instructions,which, when executed by the processor cause the processor to performoperations comprising: receiving online content from a plurality ofcontributors for public online display, wherein the online contentincludes content and reviews of content; determining for a contributorof the plurality of contributors, an authentication score representing astrength of authentication of the contributor and that is a function ofwhether (a) the contributor initiated contact with an entity associatedwith the computer server system or (b) an entity associated with thecomputer server system initiated contact with the contributor; andpublishing online for display on one or more computers the contributor'sname and a representation of the contributor's authentication score inassociation with the online content received from the contributor. 20.The system of claim 19, wherein determining the authentication scorefurther comprises: receiving a name and personal information from thecontributor; determining from a third party source whether or not thename and the personal information are associated; and based on thedetermination, determining the authentication score for the contributor.21. The system of claim 20, wherein the personal information is atelephone number, and determining from a third party source includesconfirming with a telephone provider that the name and telephone numberare associated.
 22. The system of claim 21, further comprising:providing the contributor a token; and calling the telephone number andrequiring a person who answers to provide the token.
 23. The system ofclaim 20, wherein the personal information is a credit card number, anddetermining from a third party source includes confirming with a creditagency that the name and credit card number are associated.
 24. Thesystem of claim 20, wherein the person information is an identificationnumber used for tax filing and determining from a third party sourceincludes confirming with a credit agency or the Internal Revenue Servicethat the number and name are associated.
 25. A computer-readable storagemedium having instructions encoded thereon, which, when executed by aprocessor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising:receiving, at a computer server system, online content from a pluralityof contributors for public online display, where the online contentincludes content and reviews of content; determining, with the computerserver system, an authentication score for a contributor of theplurality of contributors, comprising: receiving a name and personalinformation from the contributor; determining from a third party sourcewhether the name and the personal information are associated; and basedon the determination, determining the authentication score for thecontributor, the authentication score representing a strength ofauthentication of the contributor and being a function of whether (a)the contributor initiated contact with the computer server system or (b)the computer server system initiated contact with the contributor; andpublishing online for display, on one or more second computer systems,the contributor's name and a representation of the contributor'sauthentication score in association with the online content receivedfrom the contributor.
 26. A computer-readable storage medium havinginstructions encoded thereon, which, when executed by a processor, causethe processor to perform operations comprising: receiving, in a computersystem, a request from the contributor to register as an authenticatedcontributor; receiving, in the computer system, a name and personalinformation from the contributor; accessing data at a third partysource, using the computer system, to determine if the name and thepersonal information are associated; and in response to a positivedetermination that the name and personal information are associated,authenticating the contributor by providing an authentication scorerepresenting a strength of the authentication of the contributor andthat is a function of whether (a) the contributor initiated contact withan entity associated with the computer server system or instead (b) anentity associated with the computer server system initiated contact withthe contributor, wherein the authentication score is lower than if thecomputer server system had initiated the request to register as theauthenticated contributor.
 27. The computer-readable medium storage ofclaim 26, wherein the personal information is a telephone number, anddetermining that they are associated comprises confirming with atelephone provider that the name and telephone number are associated.28. The computer-readable medium storage of claim 27, furthercomprising: providing the contributor a token; and calling the telephonenumber and requiring a person who answers to provide the token.
 29. Thecomputer-readable medium storage of claim 26, wherein the personalinformation is a credit card number, and determining that they areassociated comprises confirming with a credit agency that the name andcredit card number are associated.
 30. The computer-readable mediumstorage of claim 26, wherein the personal information is anidentification number used for tax filing and determining that they areassociated comprises confirming with a credit agency or the InternalRevenue Service that the number and name are associated.
 31. A systemcomprising: a processor; a storage device coupled to the processor andconfigurable for storing instructions, which, when executed by theprocessor cause the processor to perform operations comprising:receiving, at a computer server system, online content from a pluralityof contributors for public online display, wherein the online contentincludes content and reviews of content; determining, with the computerserver system, an authentication score for a contributor of theplurality of contributors, comprising: receiving a name and personalinformation from the contributor; determining from a third party sourcewhether the name and the personal information are associated; and basedon the determination, determining the authentication score for thecontributor, the authentication score representing a strength ofauthentication of the contributor and being a function of whether (a)the contributor initiated contact with the computer server system or (b)the computer server system initiated contact with the contributor; andpublishing online for display on one or more second computer systems,the contributor's name and a representation of the contributor'sauthentication score in association with the online content receivedfrom the contributor.
 32. A system comprising: a processor; a storagedevice coupled to the processor and configurable for storinginstructions, which, when executed by the processor cause the processorto perform operations comprising: receiving, in a computer system, arequest from the contributor to register as an authenticatedcontributor; receiving, in the computer system, a name and personalinformation from the contributor; accessing data at a third partysource, using the computer system, to determine if the name and thepersonal information are associated; and in response to a positivedetermination that the name and personal information are associated,authenticating the contributor by providing an authentication scorerepresenting a strength of the authentication of the contributor andthat is a function of whether (a) the contributor initiated contact withan entity associated with the computer server system or instead (b) anentity associated with the computer server system initiated contact withthe contributor, wherein the authentication score is lower than if theentity associated with the computer server system had initiated therequest to register as the authenticated contributor.
 33. The system ofclaim 32, wherein the personal information is a telephone number, anddetermining that they are associated comprises confirming with atelephone provider that the name and telephone number are associated.34. The system of claim 33, further comprising: providing thecontributor a token; and calling the telephone number and requiring aperson who answers to provide the token.
 35. The system of claim 32,wherein the personal information is a credit card number, anddetermining that they are associated comprises confirming with a creditagency that the name and credit card number are associated.
 36. Thesystem of claim 32, wherein the personal information is anidentification number used for tax filing and determining that they areassociated comprises confirming with a credit agency or the InternalRevenue Service that the number and name are associated.